Ice dancing competition Winter Olympic Games 2026 it may be over, but many fans can’t stop talking about Madison Chock and Evan Bates’ performance — or France’s controversial victory after the judges’ scores left the Americans just 1.43 points short of the gold.

Asked by CBS News if there should be any changes to the way ice dancing is judged in the future, Chock said “it would definitely help if it was more understandable for the viewers, to just see more transparent judging and understand … what’s really going on.”

“I think it’s also important for the skaters, that the referees are vetted and reviewed to make sure they’re performing at their best as well,” she continued, “because there’s a lot at stake for the skaters when they’re out there doing their best, and we deserve the referees to also do their best and make it a fair and level playing field.”

The Americans were the favorites in Wednesday’s free dance, although they had 0.46 points behind France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron after part of the rhythmic dance competition on Monday. They published their best result in the world in the program on Monday, scoring 89.72 points, but were then surpassed by the French pair with a score of 90.18.

Chock and Bates performed their freestyle dance to “Paint It Black” from the dystopian sci-fi series “Westworld” and earned a score of 134.67. Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron then skated to the soundtrack from the movie “The Whale” to score 135.64, edging out the married American couple by less than a point.

However, during their free dance program, Cizeron made a mistake during an element called a twizzle — a moving spin with one leg — and their performance was generally considered less clean than Chock and Bates.

In the end, Beaudry and Cizeron’s total of 225.82 topped Chock and Bates’ 224.39. Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier won bronze with 217.74.

In ice dancing, each element has a base value or the number of points it is normally worth; there is also a performance rating, for which teams are rated positively if they do well and negatively if they do poorly. The French were not flagged for a mistake during their twizzles, and there were other moments during their performance that could have appeared sloppy.

But their scores surpassed Chock and Bates’ scores for both artistic presentation and musical interpretation. Another subjective scoring factor: The French judge gave the Americans more than seven points less than the French duo, a big difference in ice dancing. Five of the nine judges favored the Americans in the scoring; the other three gave only slightly more points to the French team.

“It’s definitely a bittersweet feeling right now,” Chock said after Wednesday’s contest. “We’ve had an amazing year – 15 years together on the ice; first Olympics as a married couple. And this week we had four top performances. I think we’re really proud of how we handled ourselves here and what we achieved.”

Bates said Thursday it was their “absolute best performance.” He said he and Chock didn’t study the results, adding that their performance “was like a winning skate for us and that’s what we’re going to stick with,” the Associated Press reported.

They are still discussing plans for the future. It’s the 2026 World Figure Skating Championships next month in Prague, and the Americans are the current world champions.

Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron have been a couple for less than a year. Cizeron previously won ice dance gold at the 2022 Winter Olympics with then-partner Gabriella Papadakis, who retired in 2024. She has since accused Cizeron of abuse, saying he was “controlling” and “demanding,” CBS News partner BBC News reported. He countered that Papadakis was spreading false information about him in a “smear campaign”.

Fournier Beaudry was born in Montreal and spent most of her career representing Canada, but was granted French citizenship in November. She asked Cizeron to team up after her former partner, Nikolaj Sørensen, was suspended by Skate Canada after the American skater accused him of sexual assault. The suspension was overturned in June on jurisdictional grounds, but the case is still pending, the AP reported. Fournier Beaudry has also maintained his innocence, showing his support for his former partner as recently as earlier this month.