Golden redemption for Papadakis and Cizeron in Valentine’s Day ice dancing

The scheduling was surely not a coincidence as the ice dancing pairs served up some much needed Valentine’s Day cheer at the Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing, on a day figure skating was overshadowed by the Kamila Valieva case.

The gold medal, won with a world record score of 226.98, went to France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, who danced to Gabriel Fauré’s Élégie. That also added a redemptive twist to the competition. In 2018 they became breakout social media stars of the Pyeongchang Games in South Korea for all the wrong reasons.

At the last Olympics a wardrobe malfunction left Papadakis falling out of her dress on the ice while the skaters tried to execute their short dance. “I felt it right away and I prayed,” she said at the time. “It was pretty distracting, kind of my worst nightmare happening at the Olympics.”

After that mishap the French dancers ultimately missed out on winning in 2018, despite setting a world record score in their other routine, and had to settle for silver, losing by less than a point to the Canadian duo of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. Since then Papadakis and Cizeron have gone on to dominate ice dancing, and they went into Monday’s session with a commanding lead.

The British pair Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson finished in 10th place with a combined score of 191.64.

Ice dancing is surely the most sensual of Olympic disciplines, with many of the pairings appearing through the years being couples on and off the ice. Though not every dancing pair in Beijing are romantically entangled. Indeed, from the winning pair, Cizeron is openly gay, and in October 2021 the International Skating Union had to investigate an allegation of homophobic comments made about him by a Russian coach at a