🥇 GOLD MEDAL… AND INSTANT CHAOS. 🔥 Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron delivered a stunning Olympic performance that earned them the ultimate prize. The arena roared. The fairytale seemed complete.

French ice dancers Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron scored 2026 Winter Olympics gold, but their ongoing controversies hover over their win.

The duo, who partnered up in March 2025, followed up their first-place finish in the short program on Monday with a score of 225.82 in their free dance on Wednesday, Feb. 11. They finished just 1.42 ahead of Team USA’s top ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who took second with a score of 224.49. Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier took third with a score of 217.74.

Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron were emotional, cheering and hugging each other in the kiss and cry after hearing they had narrowly snagged gold.

While the pair has been celebrated for their elegant performances, their dual controversies stemming from their previous relationships have followed them around the ice all Olympics.

In Fournier Beaudry’s case, the focus has been on her boyfriend and former ice dance partner, Nikolaj Sørensen, who was suspended from the sport in 2024 after he was accused of a 2012 sexual assault of a former skater and coach. He previously denied the allegations.

Though his initial six-year suspension from Skate Canada was eventually overturned, because he was no longer actively competing or living as a Canadian citizen, Fournier Beaudry shared in Netflix’s docuseries Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing that it ended her boyfriend’s career.

Cizeron, meanwhile, was recently accused of being “controlling, demanding and critical” by his longtime partner Gabriella Papadakis, with whom he won the gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, in an interview last month, ahead of the release of her memoir So as Not to Disappear.

The former skater wrote that she felt like she was under Cizeron’s “control” and that she was “terrified” at the idea of being alone with him. Cizeron has called her accusations a “smear campaign” in a statement to Reuters and said that he was pursuing legal action.

“I want to express my incomprehension and disagreement with the labels attributed to me,” he said. “The book contains false information, including statements I never made, which I consider serious.”

Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron have hoped to set the controversies aside during the Milan Games, and focus on their skating.

“We started a new chapter a year ago,” Cizeron told reporters at the start of the Olympics. “Neither of us would have thought we’d be here today, so everything is like a bonus for us.”

To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come to people.com to check out ongoing coverage before, during and after the games. Watch the Milan Cortina Olympics and Paralympics, beginning Feb. 6, on NBC and Peacock.