2026 Olympics: Free Dance

[MargueriteGaultier]

I get that but that is marketing. So much money to be made by winners. Which is fine as there needs to be financial gain somewhere in this sport.

What I dislike about the Olympics is the pain and sometimes humiliation felt by those not getting the gold medal, even though they have been world champions. My heart still hurts for Patrick Chan. He did get his team gold but lots of listers here said he still wasn’t an Olympic champion. Whether he was or wasn’t, he was still an amazing and in his day a dominant skater. He brought high level artistry and athleticism to the sport. His music interpretation was breathtaking. So why should the “failure” to win gold at Sochi be more career defining than winning three world championships? But I recognize mine is a minority opinion.

It's not a minority opinion! There are more sinister operations going on behind the Olympics than world championships, so the results lean even more skewed than usual!

 

[CoyoteChris]

You have to look at this collectively. If you include the six points he preferred in the RD to the eight points in the FD.... well, you do the math.

It's why I was hoping so hard the French judge would be one of those replaced for the Free Dance. When he wasn't, the writing was on the wall.

Could the French have won a fairly judged event? We'll never know. And THAT is what is so unsatisfying about this.

Here's Asher Hill's (Canadian) amusing take on things:

https://x.com/AsherHill/status/2021712283202949408

Well said. What even hurts more is there will be no investigation into the system. The proper way to investigate is to go to worlds and have the main tech panel/judging panel and three others who can not see what the main one is calling and who are isolated from each other. Then compare all four results. If they vary much, then the system needs to change.

 

[SmileHappy34]

Congratulations to all

 

[SmileHappy34]

FB//C skated great. This best skate for me connected
C/B skate well fantastic
G/P well done.

I couldn't watch first so I waited and watch when nbc rerun it.

 

[rain]

I'm so happy for Piper and Paul. They had 8 fantastic programs over the last quad and they got robbed every season. I'm so happy they made the podium. They had the best FD of the event. I will go back to this very often in the future.

I will never be over the blatant corruption of Montreal worlds. Nobody could watch that and think that Piper and Paul shouldn't have been world champions.

Piper and Paul's reactions made the competition for me. I love seeing medallists who are so happy.

 

[SmileHappy34]

Yes chock and bates don't. Havr alot to be proud of. Justa bit sad didn't win.
Skated well in all 4.
All did great .

 

[CoyoteChris]

OK, I just printed out the detailed scores for the top 2 teams. Do we know which judge is which?
Gonna rewatch tonight. Wanna see what gets reviewed. FB/C's first element has a five point GOE spread? 0-4?
And can a judge in real time or after the fact judge PCs to within a quarter of a point?
I am quickly loosing faith here. This is only slightly more believable than the Westminister dog show. And that is fake.

 

[crazydreamer]

I'm sad for Chock and Bates, but I think it was a fair result. The French team's free dance is just so special and stunning.

I would have put Zingas and Kolesnik in 4th. Possibly even 3rd. But that's just my personal hot take, we all have them.

 

[boo69]

What Cizeron did to C/B is like what V/M did to P/C in 2018. I feel bad for C/B (not getting the medal color they wanted) and the Italians for missing out on the bronze. The Canadians would be happy with a medal of any color. Had Cizeron not come back C/B and the Italians would be have gotten what they wanted. Nevertheless, I did enjoy FB/C FD. Since I'm no ice-dance expert, I'll have to play the devil's advocate. Even with the mistake on the twizzle from Cizeron, perhaps all the other elements were superior to C/B gave them the extra cushion, hence justifying winning the FD. I didn't think FB/C would beat C/B by that large of a margin with that bobble. I thought it would be by less than half a point. I even was shocked that FB/C won, even though I was rooting for them. What would make more sense would be that C/B win the FD by the slightest margin, but with FB/C winning overall.

 

[reader3]

Congrats to C/B and P/P. I know Piper has gone through so much.

 

[Janice4th]

The man covered it like a pro; it didn't even look like he finished earlier; they just looked out of sync. They looked really powerful and impressive, I must say. C/B chose the wrong material for that FD. If they could have matched or even come closer with respect to skating skills, the gold would have been theirs. You don't take a Latin piece and then give it no Latin flair. It came across, honestly, as flat and pretentious. It's like comparing the artistry of Nancy Kerrigan with Oksana Baiul. When we look back objectively, we'll see FB/C won fair and square.

Not with those egregious errors that were not given proper deduction. This isn’t just coming from Chock and Bates fans.

 

[Janice4th]

I'm sad for Chock and Bates, but I think it was a fair result. The French team's free dance is just so special and stunning.

I would have put Zingas and Kolesnik in 4th. Possibly even 3rd. But that's just my personal hot take, we all have them.

For me it was monotone, boring, and not even innovative. There were no highs and lows. So, liking it or not liking it isn’t a criteria for winning. Two major mistakes should have had an effect. It didn’t.

 

[4everchan]

I have finally caught up.

Marco and Charlène. Their free dance is very beautiful. My second favourite for the entire competition. I am glad they got their medal in the team event. I still don't think they should have podiumed in the ice dance competition : their rhythm dance wasn't a good program. Of course twizzles weren't good either in both segments.

Piper and Paul : this is what I have been hoping for them all year. They needed a perfect competition to get the bronze. They did it. All they could control was their two programs. They performed pretty much to the best of their abilities in both. They managed to bring me into their performance. I had goosebumps during the FD. Every element was woven perfectly as if technical elements didn't matter... it was just choreography. It was brilliant, heartfelt and at the same time, it drew you in. Honestly, I think they were underscored in both events. Considering the mistakes made by others or the lack of ice coverage and amplitude some teams suffered from, I will use all my personal bias to say that they should have won gold . However, I am not disappointed at all. A medal, any colour, is fabulous, but the biggest prize remains that they stayed true to themselves and skated perfect programs in the event. They will look back at their Olympics with no regrets, only positive. These memories will be with them (and with me) forever.
I cried. I smiled. Gosh, Paul's emotion... wow... I am elated.. still hours after it's all done. (I was working.. I am sorry I couldn't watch this live.. that will be my regret). Also, to me it's a silver lining for 2024 worlds. Piper and Paul really deserved gold there. I was there. I saw it. Judges gave them the win in the Free Dance but they had put them so far behind (for no reason) in the RD that they ended up in silver. That silver tasted bitter. This bronze tastes amazing.

Maddie and Evan, this is perhaps one of my least favourite free dance of them in the last few years. I thought they were dominant last year in Boston... not this year. I thought it was less innovative than some of their previous work and some elements were not as big as they could have been (twizzles for instance).. However, tonight, they were precise and there were a lot of very nice details coming through in their dance. I felt at times that the skirt took too much room. It was fun to watch how brilliantly Maddie was working it but it started to look a bit gimmicky at times.

Laurence and Guillaume : I didn't like their RD at all but their FD is good. A bit one note for sure, but that's what Guillaume always does. Everyone is talking about Guillaume but the star of this partnership tonight was Laurence. She skated perfectly where he struggled. There was a very obvious blip in the twizzles and I saw two more minor mistakes : rotational lift wonky... and in the steps, he also had a wobble.
I think they should have finished third on the basis of their performance tonight but they are still the best team out there... and I guess the judges decided they had done enough or that their mistakes were not important enough. The kinds of mistakes they made should have been perhaps more penalized in the GOE but I don't think they did affect the flow of their performance. So I don't think they should have been penalized in PCS. After rewatching, I am fine with them winning the free dance based on their superior skating overall

Of course, this is just my opinion and my personal reception of these dances.

I will end up with this : life is strange. Chock and Bates have won many competitions while they made mistakes. .. Many fans have complained about this. Tonight, they were much cleaner than those who won... It's hard to beat a dancer like Guillaume though. He is very beautiful on the ice, even his mistakes looked better than mistakes made by others.

Do I believe judging needs to be better : yes. In the end, it didn't really matter because Lilah and Lewis had a terrible free dance, but I have posted this at the beginning of the thread : I was relieved to see that Nicholas Russell, the British judge, wasn't going to be involved in here.
So when fans pick up on these ugly patterns from some of the judges, it is bad. I cannot even imagine what the skaters and their coaches go through.

I am going to rest a bit after a 12 hour long day of work. Yes. I work a lot and too bad this is a busy week for me in the Olympics (except for tomorrow and guess what, there is no skating tomorrow LOL) So yeah... will try to join this weekend for pairs.

 

[NewLook]

C/B won in five judges who put them first. But since it's not a placement but points, the French judge abnormal margin made the difference in result. In short, one French judge decided the Gold for French team. This is not the right system. Something must be done. Guess what. Even if that judge got banned for life, the result will not change- the French team with the Gold decided by one French judge.

And, you people don't dare to compare Cizeron with Dmitriev. Artur has two real golds, not fake one awarded by one national judge. Plus he never had alleged rapist buddy from the shelter for alleged rapists.

 

[Blades of Passion]

I respect Asher’s opinion. Messing up on twizzles may work in other comps but inexcusable for Olympic Gold..

Selective quoting of social media opinions generally isn't productive. Here's what Polina Edmunds thought, watching the performances live:

"Laurence and Guillame’s edge quality, movement ability, speed and power was extraordinary. Sitting on the side of the arena, they were the only team I felt it didn’t matter where you sat to get a full scope of the program. Congratulations!"

Let's actually compare the twizzle sequences of the two teams. Cizeron got offbalance on the last twizzle, okay, but the french team had more speed in the element than Chock/Bates and Cizeron did a difficult head release position. So, really, C/B were only better by about 1 GOE on that element and the judges who gave Chock/Bates +5 on it were out of line and should be receiving criticism. The differential between the two teams on the element ultimately ended up being pretty accurate.

And speaking of mistakes, Chock/Bates won 2023 Worlds by many points with an outright fall. They deserved that win, being much better than the field at the time. Sometimes people make mistakes and deserve to win still. Of course, it will always be debated.

Two major mistakes should have had an effect. It didn’t.

It's not accurate to label what happened as two "major" mistakes, and it did have an effect - their score was lower. With a clean performance they would have received max GOE from the majority of judges on those elements and won by a larger margin.

 

[lariko]

My understanding that if one judge is blatantly out of range, the result is struck out. I always keep asking they blacked out the scores that was not counted in protocols. I don't get it why they don't do it.

 

[fenway3]

not quite.

they were still cheating.

Of course there was still plenty of cheating back then. And I'm not saying everything about ordinals was wonderful. But with ordinals, the power of any individual judge to game the system was more limited.

What we saw tonight—the opinion of a minority of judges being able to prevail against the majority—could not have happened.

Anyway, I have a feeling that even if one or both members of the French team had taken a tumble to the ice, the result would still have been the same.

 

[4everchan]

Of course there was still plenty of cheating back then. And I'm not saying everything about ordinals was wonderful. But with ordinals, the power of any individual judge to game the system was more limited.

and that's why they got together into blocks...

What we saw tonight—the opinion of a minority of judges being able to prevail against the majority—could not have happened.

well... I haven't looked at the protocols in detail... It's quite possible that removing the scores from the French judge would still bring in the same result.

I am sure @Andrea82 has looked at the scoring and can shed some light on it.

 

[RatedPG]

I didn’t really focus on the top two performances because I was so happy for our Canadian breakthrough performance.

I rewatched the final two free dances and I’m glad the French team won. Cizeron was carried by our gal (she didn’t put a foot wrong). I always knew she was the best female dancer and this Olympic performance proved it. The French are just superior skaters overall compared to the Americans. The Americans have put in the work. But, this is an ice skating competition and the French are the superior dancers.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Not with those egregious errors that were not given proper deduction. This isn’t just coming from Chock and Bates fans.

I agree. My wife and I just watched....again...sorry, but this twizzle doesnt represent the scores the French got. It was botched. This is not superior skating skills. While T and J showed this with creampuff remarks, Dick Button would have blasted the French. And / or the judges.