ISU Clarifies Controversial Ice Dance Scoring: French Judges Propel Home Team Over U.S. Competitors

The International Skating Union (ISU) is firmly supporting the judging outcomes from the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ ice dance competition. The French judicator, Jezabel Dabouis, played a pivotal role in shaping the results, significantly boosting the French duo, Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, to triumph over the American pair, Madison Chock and Evan Bates.

Dabouis awarded Beaudry and Cizeron a margin of nearly eight points above Chock and Bates during the free dance segment. This discrepancy was so substantial that, had her scores been excluded from the total, Chock and Bates would have clinched the gold medal.

The ISU, addressing the controversy, noted, “It is normal for there to be a range of scores given by different judges in any panel, and a number of mechanisms are used to mitigate these variations.” They expressed “full confidence in the scores given” and reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining fairness in the sport.

Unfortunately for the U.S. team, their options are limited if the ISU chooses not to delve further into the scoring inconsistencies. This situation leaves the American skaters with little recourse.

This isn’t the first time Dabouis’s scoring has raised eyebrows in relation to Beaudry and Cizeron. In December, during the Grand Prix Final, Chock and Bates narrowly defeated the French team in their only other direct encounter. Despite two deductions against the Americans in the free dance, including a significant fall, Dabouis still scored them slightly ahead. Consequently, Beaudry and Cizeron took the silver medal in that event.

Dabouis also had a wide margin favoring the French couple in the Olympic rhythm dance, when they also beat the U.S. team.

“Any time the public is confused by results, it does a disservice to our sport,” said Chock, who along with Bates, won a second straight team gold medal earlier in the Games. “I think it’s hard to retain fans when it’s difficult to understand what is happening on the ice.

“People need to understand what they’re cheering for and be able to feel confident in the sport that they’re supporting.”

The most famous judging controversy in Olympic figure skating also involved a French judge.

During the 2002 Salt Lake Games, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia won gold over the Canadian pair Jamie Sale and David Pelletier. But allegations of vote-swapping and selling of votes by French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne led to an investigation by the ISU and the International Olympic Committee, and she was ultimately found guilty of misconduct and suspended.

Sale and Pelletier ultimately were elevated to gold while the Russian pair was allowed to keep their medals.

Two years later, the ISU eliminated its 6.0 judging system due to its inherent subjectivity. The replacement system, which has been tweaked over the years but remains in place, features two scores added together: one where each element is graded off a base value to establish a technical score and another where judges provide a component score for overall skating skill and performance.

Many critics have called the system overly confusing and still too subjective, and more than 10,000 people had signed a Change.org petition by Friday asking the ISU and IOC to investigate the latest scoring controversy.

“We did speak to our coach, and we did talk to each other, and we know how we felt on center ice after we skated,” Bates said. “We felt like we delivered our absolute best performance that we could have. It was our Olympic moment. It felt like a winning skate to us, and that’s what we’re going to hold on to.”