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Were the United States of America duo Evan Bates and Madison Chock robbed of gold in the ice dance competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina? The International Skating Union doesn’t seem to think so.
Chock and Bates, the three-time defending world champions, finished second to French pair Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry. However, questionable scoring French judge Jézabel Dabois put the result under scrutiny.
Despite backlash from fans across the world, the ISU is standing by the scoring.
International Skating Union Says Olympic Ice Dance Scoring Was Entirely Fair
On Friday morning, the ISU finally addressed the controversy and stood behind not only Dabois, but the scoring process as a whole.
“It is normal for there to be a range of scores given by different judge in any panel and a number of mechanism are used to mitigate these variations,” the ISU said via the Associated Press, noting it has “full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness.”
While the ISU says the scoring was fine, Chock says that the confusion across the ice dancing world proves otherwise.
“Any time the public is confused by results, it does a disservice to our sport,” she said. “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.”
Of course, scoring shouldn’t be based on which competitors’ fans do or do not like. But there were a number of people well-versed in ice dancing who did not understand how the judges came to the scores that they did.
Either way, Chock and Bates will be leaving with silver, and with their careers now over, they’ll be leaving with the medals they coveted most.