French ice skating duo competing at Winter Olympics overshadowed by dark allegations
Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron may have become stars of the Winter Olympics, but much of the attention is due to controversial moments in their previous pairings.
The 2026 Winter Olympics have been filled with drama already, with everything from horrifying crashes, credit card theft and fraud, to cheating scandals.
Now there's another controversy after details of allegations relating to the former partners of two skaters have emerged.
Ice dancing is regarded as one of the most glamorous sports at the Winter Olympics, but there's a dark cloud hanging over this popular duo, ever since Laurence Fournier Beaudry, 33, and Guillaume Cizeron, 31, announced their new partnership in March of last year.
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The pair have gone on to bag gold at the Games, just 1.43 points ahead of Team USA's Madison Chock and Evan Bates, but not everybody is celebrating their win.
Fournier Beaudry's boyfriend and former ice dance teammate, Nikolaj Sorensen, was accused of sexual assault in 2012.
He was suspended from the sport for six years for alleged 'sexual maltreatment', but the suspension was eventually overturned.
There has been no criminal review into the allegations.
Fournier Beaudry starred in a docuseries on Netflix called Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing, and confirmed in the show that the allegations and suspension ended Sorenson's career: "I know my boyfriend 100 percent. I know him."
Cizeron previously won a gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics with his former dancing partner Gabriella Papadakis.
Their team came to an end, and Papadakis released a new memoir this year called So as Not to Disappear, in which she accused him of being 'controlling' and 'demanding' and that she felt 'under his grip' in their partnership.
Cizeron hit back at his former partner's claims, calling it a 'smear campaign' in a statement he issued to Reuters, and confirmed he was pursuing legal action against Papadakis.
He insisted: "In the face of this smear campaign, I want to express my incomprehension and disagreement with the labels attributed to me. The book contains false information, including statements I never made, which I consider serious.
"For more than 20 years, I have shown deep respect for Gabriella Papadakis," Cizeron said. "Despite the gradual erosion of our bond, our relationship was built on equal collaboration and marked by success and mutual support."
Speaking about their new partnership, Cizeron told reporters: "We started a new chapter a year ago. Neither of us would have thought we'd be here today, so everything is like a bonus for us.
"It was a lot of work, but from the beginning we had a lot of similarities in the way we trained and approached things," Cizeron told the post-event news conference on why he and Fournier Baudry have clicked so quickly.
"It was also a chance to evolve, it was playful, we had a lot of fun from the beginning."
LADbible has reached out to Gabriella Papadakis for comment.
Topics: Winter Olympics
Jen Thomas