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French ice dancers Papadakis and Cizeron win Olympic gold / Photo: ©
French ice dancers Papadakis and Cizeron win Olympic gold
French figure skaters Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron won their first Olympic gold in ice dancing Monday in Beijing, breaking their own world record again in the process.
The five-time European and four-time world champions scored 226.98 in total, beating their previous high score of 226.61.
Russia's Nikita Katsalapov and Victoria Sinitsina, the reigning European and world champions after Papadakis and Cizeron skipped those competitions due to Covid concerns, had to settle for silver. Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue took bronze.
It is the French duo's first Olympic title after coming second at the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018 when a wardrobe malfunction disrupted their performance.
This time, sleek in shimmering red and gold, there were no such problems as they spun across the ice to "Elegie" by Gabriel Faure.
Their free dance score of 136.15 was just shy of the world record, which they also hold.
Sinitsina and Katsalapov earned 131.66 for their passionate interpretation of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 dance, and 220.51 overall.
N. Gonçalves--JDB
