Olympic Games 2022: Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron dance towards gold

Special Envoy to China

To discover

• The Olympic medal table: Norway already in the lead, France unlocks its counter

• Full results of the 2022 Winter Olympics

• The complete program of the Beijing Olympics 2022

So far, so good.

Very good even for Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron.

This time, no choker that comes off like in Pyeongchang, which had deprived them of a very probable Olympic gold medal.

Their outfit, in addition to being superbly elegant, held up, and nothing came to disturb their magnificent performance on two tracks by John Legend, “Made to love” and “U move, I move”.

With a common theme for all, namely urban dances.

That the French couple perfectly knew how to make their own, throughout a choreography of mad energy, with arm movements of bewildering speed and dizzying technical difficulties.

All done with grace to obtain the final score of 90.83 points, synonymous with a new world record on this short format,

French medals at the Beijing Olympics

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A performance that stunned the competition.

Starting with the reigning world champions, the Russians Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, the last – and only – to have beaten the French couple at the 2020 European Championship from Pyeongchang.

But this Saturday, in the Beijing ice rink, they had to admit defeat.

Despite an excellent program, they were only credited with a score of 88.85, both technically and artistically inferior.

The expression on their faces when they discovered their note said more than words about their dismay at the time, and the feeling that, perhaps, the gold had already passed under their noses.

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The cards (well) in hand for the gold

None of the other couples who will follow will threaten the leadership of the Papadakis-Cizeron duo, nor even interfere between them and their Russian dolphins.

And the gap between the French couple and the third, the Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, is already very comfortable (more than three and a half points).

But obviously, on the night of Sunday to Monday in France (from 2:15 a.m.), the quadruple world champions will only aim for gold, the only major title that is still missing from their list.

And this time, unlike the 2018 Games, they will have all the cards in hand to realize their dream.

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