MILAN — For a moment, a moment decades in the making, yet fleeting nevertheless, Evan Bates seemed to think he and Madison Chock, his partner on and off the ice, were golden.At the end of their free dance at the Milano Ice Skating Arena Wednesday night, Bates, finishing the program on his knees, l eaned over onto the ice in exhaustion, then leaned back and shouted “yes” and then look up at his wife as he shook his fists, seemingly convinced he and Chock, winners of the last three World Championships, had finally captured the one prize that eluded them: the Olympic gold medal. They embraced and Chock kissed the top of his head. Then, in a few seconds, it all evaporated, joy fading into apprehension. Had they built enough of a lead in the free dance to hold off France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, leaders after the rhythm dance by a mere 0.46 points? They hadn’t. Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron, skating right after the U.S. pair and the last team to perform Wednesday, went on to edge the Americans for the gold medal by just over a point — 225.82 to 224.39. It was Cizeron’s second consecutive Olympic gold medal and completed a remarkable and controversial comeback. “Oh, my God, we’re still in shock,” Cizeron said. “We had such a special time on the ice today. “Looking back a year ago, when we started dreaming of this, it’s pretty incredible what we’ve been through, and the work and the love that we’ve put into our training and our skating, and the support that we’ve had along the way.” For Chock, the 33-year-old Redondo Beach native, and Bates, 36, it was a bitter end to their pursuit of the ice dance gold medal that stretched across four Olympic Games. “It’s definitely a bittersweet feeling,” Chock said. “At the moment, we have so much to be proud of. “We’ve had the most incredible career, 15 years on the ice together, first Olympics as a married couple, and delivered four of our best performances this week.” Bates and Chock, who married in June 2024, arrived at the Milano Cortina Olympic Games heavy favorites after not only winning the last three Worlds but the last three ISU Grand Prix finals, including the 2025-26 season final in December. Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron only began skating together last year after Cizeron’s nasty high-profile 2024 breakup with longtime partner Gabriella Papadakis, with whom he won the 2022 Olympic title and five World championships. The pair broke 28 scoring world records, a record in itself for all figure skating disciplines since the current judging system was adopted in 2004 in the wake of the Salt Lake City Olympic judging scandal. But they also disagreed and fought regularly. In January, Papadakis published a memoir, “Pour ne pas disparaître” (“To Not Disappear”). In an interview to promote the book, she said of Cizeron, “The idea of being alone with him terrifies me. His attitude throws me off balance. Sometimes he ignores me; sometimes he plays the best friend, as if nothing were wrong … His coldness chills me to the bone.” Cizeron accused Papadakis of launching a “smear campaign” against him. Cizeron made headlines again when he and Fournier Beaudry shocked these Olympic Games by finishing ahead of Chock and Bates in Monday’s rhythm dance, albeit by less than a point. “The game is always on, and you should know us by now: we’re not changing anything,” Chock said after the rhythm dance. “We’ve got this locked in. We know ourselves, we know our team and we got this.” And for a moment after she and Bates finished their free dance to “Paint It Black,” an acoustic, almost classical take on the Rolling Stones’ 1960s hit, it appeared they had. “The emotions came flooding out, because it’s just a lot,” Bates said. “We really did our best, and that is something we’ll try to remember and focus on most right now, that we really did our best. “We delivered every time we stepped on the ice.” But satisfaction quickly gave way to apprehension, which was reflected back to them in the faces of their coaches by the time they reached the boards. They seemed to grow even more concerned when their free skate and overall scores were posted. “In life, sometimes you can feel like you do everything right and it doesn’t go your way,” Bates said. “That’s life, and that’s sport, and it’s a subjective sport. It’s a judged sport. “But one fact that is indisputable is that we delivered our best. We skated our best. We did our best almost every single time. “The rest is not up to us, but we felt like we were very close. We felt like we skated a winning performance.” As they waited to see if the judges agreed, they sat, then moved onto a couch reserved for the competition leaders a few feet away from the “kiss and cry” area where the skaters and coaches await their scores. Chock and Bates sat stoically as a scoreboard in the top right corner of a television screen showed Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron edging closer to their point total. They sat as if they knew they were about to receive a heavy blow, a gut punch, but refused to blink. It was only after the French team’s score was announced that Chock, trying to summon a smile, revealed a slight hint of her disappointment with her eyes starting to glisten. One could only imagine the thoughts and emotions running through their heads. Certainly, Bates could not be blamed if he was reconsidering a statement he made after the pair finished fourth in the 2022 Olympic ice dance competition. “I think the fourth place sometimes,” he said, “can be one of the hardest places to finish.” FEATURED OLYMPICS COVERAGE Winter Olympics: Chloe Kim goes for record 3rd halfpipe gold medal Winter Olympics: Maxim Naumov dedicates short program to parents lost in last year’s D.C. plane crash Speed skating diva Jutta Leerdam delivers drama, celebrates gold medal Related Articles LA28 board backs Casey Wasserman despite alleged ties with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein Hailed as a pioneer, Swedish transgender skier at Winter Olympics just wants to focus on sport Inside the secret text group of US figure skating Olympic gold medalists known as ‘the OGM chain’ Spanish skater says it’s ‘amazing’ to bring Minions to Olympic ice after music dispute Olympics are here for many NHL stars who waited half their careers or more for this ...read more read less