French ice dance duo Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron put a costume snafu at Pyeongchang 2018 behind them once and for all when they became Winter Olympic champions in Beijing on Monday.
Four years ago, an outfit malfunction saw Papadakis’ breast accidentally exposed for much of their short dance routine. “It was pretty distracting, kind of my worst nightmare happening at the Olympics,” Papadakis said at the time. The pair won silver.
On Saturday, the duo wowed judges with their rhythm dance routine to a John Legend medley — setting a new world record score of 90.83 in the process.
“We are super happy with our performance. We are in a totally different place from where we were four years ago,” Cizeron told Eurosport on Saturday. “Mentally and in terms of preparation, too. We did not have a good memory of the short program there. We are super happy with our performance so indeed, it is a little revenge.”
Monday’s free dance to French composer Gabriel Faure’s “Elegie” scored them 136.15 points, and secured them the gold medal.
“I think we don’t believe it yet. Honestly, it feels completely unreal,” Papadakis said Monday. “We have been waiting for this. This is the medal that we wanted. My brain doesn’t understand it.”
Russia’s Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov placed second. U.S. duo Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue won bronze.
