French ice dancers Beaudry and Cizeron edge US favorites Chock and Bates in rhythm dance at Olympics

MILAN (AP) — Madison Chock and Evan Bates have ground to make up in their pursuit of ice dance gold at the Milano Cortina Olympics.

The three-time world champions made the slightest mistake on their pattern step as the final couple on the ice Monday night, and it left them trailing Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron by the slimmest of margins going into the free dance.

The new French couple scored 90.18 points early in the night, hours before Chock and Bates performed at the Milano Ice Skating Arena. The score held up the rest of the way with the Americans, fresh off helping to defend their team gold medal 24 hours earlier, earning 89.72 points for their Lenny Kravitz-inspired rock-and-roll rhythm dance.

Chock and Bates had scored a world-leading 91.06 points for the same program during the team competition.

“The game is always on. You should know us by now,” Chock said afterward, flashing a grin. “We're not changing anything. We've got this locked in, locked in where we know ourselves, know our routine. And yeah, we've got this."

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada were third with 86.18 points in a tight race for the podium ahead of the free dance Wednesday night. Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson were fourth as they try to give Britain its first figure skating medal since 1994.

The future of U.S. ice dancing, Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, were in fifth with 83.53 points after a brilliant performance amid an emotional week. Kolesnik recently became an American citizen but is originally from Ukraine, and he was able to see two extended family members for the first time in four years — since the Russian invasion — when they flew into Milan on Saturday.

“I know it's the Olympic stage, and for many people this is the moment of their lives,” Kolesnik said. “I just thought of it as a test challenge for our next eight years, because this is just the beginning for us. We're going to reach higher places.”

Beaudry and Cizeron arrived at the Winter Games last week facing controversy linked to their former partners.

Beaudry, who previously skated for Canada, was left in professional limbo when Skate Canada banned Nikolaj Sorensen for a minimum of six years after allegations of “sexual maltreatment.” The suspension was overturned in June on jurisdictional grounds, but the case is still pending, and the uncertainty of it all left Beaudry in search of a new partner.

She found one in Cizeron, who had retired after 2022, when he won the Olympic gold medal with Gabriella Papadakis.

But in the last few weeks, Cizeron also has come under scrutiny. It stems from Papadakis' new memoir, “So As Not To Disappear,” in which she accused her longtime partner of being demanding, controlling and emotionally manipulative.

Cizeron has called the allegations false, accusing Papadakis of engineering a “smear campaign.”

“We're really creating a bubble between the two of us and our coaches,” Beaudry said, when asked about the potential distractions, “so when we are out there, it's about the moment we spend together, and the memories that we'll bring back from that moment.”

Beaudry and Cizeron certainly made some memories in their rhythm dance.

While their twizzles were still not perfect, the entirety of their program was far superior to their performance in the team competition on Friday. And when their 90-plus score was announced, Beaudry sat for a second in stunned silence in the kiss-and-cry.

“We really tried to skate as best as we could,” Cizeron said. "We had a great time and we’ll try to do the same for the free dance.”

They will have to hold off Chock and Bates, whose free dance is arguably the best in the world.

The Americans have spent the past four years targeting individual gold at the Olympics, ever since finishing just off the podium in fourth place at the Beijing Games. Chock and Bates have been nearly unbeatable, too, losing four times over that entire span, while capturing three consecutive world titles and dominating the Grand Prix Final.

If it wasn't for getting leveled down on their pattern step Monday night, they would be the ones in the lead heading into the free skate.

“It's really hard to analyze the performance so in depth," Chock said. “We're just going to bring the feeling we had at the end forward, and our coaches will figure that out when the time comes. But we're really happy with how we performed.”

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada compete during the rhythm dance in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik of the United States react to their scores after competing during the rhythm dance in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Holly Harris and Jason Chan of Australia compete during the rhythm dance in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States compete during the rhythm dance in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron of France compete during the rhythm dance in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Lindsey Vonn’s father said Monday that the American superstar will no longer race if he has any influence over her decision and that she will not return to the Winter Olympics after breaking her left leg in the downhill over the weekend.

“She’s 41 years old and this is the end of her career,” Alan Kildow said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “There will be no more ski races for Lindsey Vonn, as long as I have anything to say about it.”

Kildow and the rest of Vonn’s family — a brother and two sisters — have been with Vonn while she is being treated at a hospital in Treviso following her fall and helicopter evacuation from the course in Cortina on Sunday.

Vonn said late Monday on Instagram that she had sustained a “complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly."

Kildow declined to comment on the injuries, but he did address how Vonn was doing emotionally.

“She’s a very strong individual,” Kildow said. “She knows physical pain and she understands the circumstances that she finds herself in. And she’s able to handle it. Better than I expected. She’s a very, very strong person. And so I think she’s handling it real well.”

Kildow — a former ski racer himself who taught his daughter to race — said he slept in his daughter’s hospital room overnight.

“She has somebody with her — or multiple people with her — at all times,” Kildow said. “We’ll have people here as long as she’s here.”

Kildow and the rest of Vonn’s family watched the crash from the finish area with all of the other spectators.

“First, the shock and the horror of the whole thing, seeing a crash like that,” Kildow said of what he felt watching the scene unfold. “It can be dramatic and traumatic. You’re just horrified at what those kinds of impacts have.

“You can go into a shock an emotional psychological shock,” he added. “Because it’s difficult to just accept what’s happened. But she’s well cared for. … And the USOC and the U.S. Ski team have a very, very top-notch doctor with her and she is being very well cared for here in Italy.”

Vonn raced the downhill despite tearing the ACL in her left knee nine days earlier in another crash.

“What happened to her had nothing to do with the ACL issue on her left leg. Nothing,” Kildow said. “She had demonstrated that she was able to function at a very high level with the two downhill training runs. … And she had been cleared by high level physicians to ski.”

Kildow said the crash was less a result of Vonn’s knee injury than the way she pushed the limits of her racing line to the point where she clipped a gate early in her run and got knocked out of control.

“There are times sometimes in any race, but especially in downhill, where you have to take a little speed off,” he said. “You can give yourself a little bit more leeway on the line so you don’t put yourself in a questionable position.”

Vonn, who holds the record of 12 World Cup victories in Cortina, returned to the circuit last season after nearly six years of retirement and after a partial titanium replacement surgery in her right knee. She won two downhills and finished on the podium in seven of the eight World Cup races that she finished this season — and came fourth in the other one.

“She won 84 World Cup races. And not many people do that,” Kildow said, referring to Vonn’s victory total, which place her second on the all-time women’s list behind teammate Mikaela Shiffrin’s record 108 wins.

“And there’s a hell of a lot of the difference between a speed race, a downhill especially, and a slalom,” Kildow added.

Vonn will not return to the Olympics to cheer on teammates or for anything else, Kildow said.

“No, she’s not that in kind of situation,” he said. “She will be going home at an appropriate point in time.”

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

United States' Lindsey Vonn's father Alan Kildow is interviewed ahead of an alpine ski women's downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Dampf)

United States' Lindsey Vonn crashes during an alpine ski women's downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

FILE - United States' Lindsey Vonn poses with her career medals with her father Alan Kildow, in the finish area after the women's downhill race, at the alpine ski World Championships in Are, Sweden, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati, File)

United States' Lindsey Vonn is airlifted away after a crash during an alpine ski women's downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Police officers stand at the doors of a buildin in Ca' Foncello Hospital in Treviso, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, where U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn is hospitalized with a broken leg after crashing during the women's downhill competition at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)

FILE - United States' Lindsey Vonn, right, poses for photographs with her father Alan Kildow at the end of an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill race, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Dampf, File)