MILAN, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The ice dance event at the Milano Cortina Olympics is headlined by a riveting new rivalry between Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates and electrifying new French duo Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron.
The French pair arrive as one of the sport's most closely watched stories — Cizeron, the reigning Olympic champion, returned to competition in 2025 with new partner Fournier Beaudry, who competed for Canada before securing French citizenship less than three months before the Games.
The two have rapidly surged to the top of the podium at major events, including the European Championships, to cement themselves as leading contenders for Olympic gold.
Their partnership — less than a year old — has brought immediate success, with victories at both of their Grand Prix assignments despite intense scrutiny and off‑ice controversy.
Chock and Bates, meanwhile, remain the established benchmark. The Americans beat the French by six points at the Grand Prix Final to reinforce their status as the ones to beat.
They also edged Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron in the rhythm dance of the Olympic team event on Friday by just over a point in recording this season's highest score in the segment.
Their technical consistency has kept the married couple at the top of the discipline, setting up a tantalising head‑to‑head for the Olympic title.
The styles between the two rivals are markedly different. The French feature expressive, mature artistry, and their mesmerizing free dance to the soundtrack from "The Whale" is classic French elegance.
Americans Chock and Bates are about power and drama. Their free dance to "Paint it Black" is a matador-inspired programme.
Chock and Bates are performing one of their most daring free dances yet — built around a gender‑role reversal in which Chock plays the matador and Bates the bull - blending flamenco and paso doble themes.
Her skirt, meant to resemble a matador's cape, has proved problematic however. At a practice just before the U.S. national championships, Bates' blade got caught in the skirt.
FIERCE BATTLE FOR BRONZE
The dominance this season between the Americans and French has left a fierce battle for bronze behind them between Canada's Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, Britain's Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, and Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri.
Gilles and Poirier are two-time world silver medallists, while Fear and Gibson, nicknamed the "Disco Brits," became the first British skaters to win a World Championship medal since Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in 1984, when they won bronze last year in Boston.
Fear and Gibson also edged Gilles and Poirier by less than a point for third place at the Grand Prix Final in December.
Guignard and Fabbri captured silver at last month's European Championships, signalling they are a medal threat in Milan.
The rhythm dance is Monday, followed by the free dance on Wednesday, at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
With new partnerships, returning champions, and tight margins at the top, the ice dance in Milan is poised to deliver one of the most dramatic and artistically rich contests of the Games.
(Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
