French skaters win ice dance gold after 2018 Olympics ruined by costume malfunction

French pair Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron would have been forgiven for giving up their Winter Olympics dream after a costume malfunction seriously dented their chance of gold four years ago.

Instead, the misfortune did the opposite.

Watch the French pair’s gold medal-winning performance in the video above

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In PyeongChang, part of Papadakis’ dress came apart early in their rhythm dance routine, leaving her partially exposed on the ice.

The pair was able to complete the routine despite the mishap, but they finished with silver even though they followed it up by breaking the then-world record score in their free dance performance.

“It was pretty distracting, kind of my worst nightmare happening at the Olympics,” Papadakis said of the incident at the time.

Papadakis and Cizeron came to Beijing as one of the favourites even with limited competition in the previous two years due to COVID-19.

On Saturday, the pair topped the rhythm dance section with a world record score of 90.83 to sit in gold medal position heading into Monday’s free dance.

The last figure skaters on the ice for the free dance, Papadakis and Cizeron scored 136.15 points for their performance to “Elegie” by the early 20th century French composer Gabriel Faure.

That gave them 226.98 points, easily enough to hold off Russia’s Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov.

The Russian world champions took silver with 220.51 points while longtime American duo Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue claimed bronze in their final Olympics.

Another set of Americans, Madison Chock and Evan Bates, finished just off the podium in fourth place.

“We are in a totally different place