International Skating Union defends controversial Olympic judging that denied Americans ice dance gold medal

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The International Skating Union defended a judge's controversial score that left Madison Chock and Evan Bates just short of Olympic gold earlier this week.

Chock and Bates settled for silver after Jezabel Dabouis favored Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron by nearly eight points over the three-time world champions in the free dance.

"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," the ISU said, adding it has "full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness."

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USA's Madison Chock and Evan Bates with the silver medals (left) and France's Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry with the gold medals (right) after the Figure Skating Ice Dance, free dance, at the Milano Ice Skating Arena, on day five of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Italy. Picture date: Wednesday Feb. 11, 2026.  (Fabrizio Carabelli/PA Images via Getty Images)

Chock called for judges to be vetted for the sake of transparency. 

"It would definitely be helpful if it's more understandable for the viewers, to just see more transparent judging and understand ... what's really going on," she told CBS News.

"I think it's also important for the skaters that the judges be vetted and reviewed to make sure that they are also putting out their best performance," she continued. "Because there's a lot on the line for the skaters when they're out there giving it their all, and we deserve to have the judges also giving us their all and for it to be a fair and even playing