The “medal hunters” are indeed back. This is how Guillaume Cizeron described his tandem on the ice with his best friend Laurence Fournier Beaudry, before the entry on stage of the Olympic champions at the 2026 World Figure Skating Championships. The French ice dancing couple was able to tame the O2 Arena in Prague and its 14,000 spectators this Friday by winning the rhythm dance event.
And in what way, with 92.74 points in the end, compared to 90.18 points in the same exercise a month ago at the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games. That is to say a personal best, at heights approaching the world record held by the American couple Madison Chock-Evan Bates (93.91 units at the Tokyo 2023 World Team Championships). It will be necessary to confirm this immense lead over the competition on Saturday evening (+ 6.29 points compared to their main pursuers), during the free program to the captivating soundtrack of the film The Whale, but the two thirty-year-olds are ideally launched towards a new major coronation.
The other French couple creates a surprise in the Top 5
A France-Europe-Olympics-World Championships quadruplet, a big year after the launch of their association, would be an even crazier mark left in the history of their sport. On the title Vogue by Madonna, Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry appeared very relaxed for three minutes, in total control of the theme imposed this season by the International Skating Union (ISU): music, dance styles and the energy of the 1990s. Suffice it to say that between the Backstreet Boys, the Spice Girls, Ricky Martin (broadcast four times!), Will Smith and Gala, the Czech public was able to enjoy (or not) with the sounds of nineties.
In the absence of the Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates, still bitter at having had to settle for silver in Milan, only the Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier (3rd at the 2026 Winter Olympics, 86.45 points this Friday) still seem (vaguely) in the game to thwart a new reign of Cizeron and Fournier. Note the surprising place in the Top 5 of the other French couple entered, Geoffrey Brissaud-Evgeniia Lopareva, at the end of this rhythmic dance (5th with 83.07 points).
The duo’s last big challenge?
“We felt really good, it was magical,” said Guillaume Cizeron at the microphone of Eurosport. With his partner, they are ultimately the only Olympic champions entered at the World Championships in Prague, due to numerous dead ends, notably on the part of the young American star Alysa Liu (20 years old). But in fact, could the French skaters, aged 33 and 31, announce their retirement following these Worlds?
“We are going to finish this season, we are going to rest and then we will see what our desires are,” Guillaume Cizeron said this week on this subject. His Franco-Canadian partner specified at the same time: “We really want to give ourselves the opportunity to enjoy, not to jump into the future, to stay in the present moment. Then, we will take advantage of the offseason to see what we want to accomplish, to bring, how we feel.”
Our file on Guillaume Cizeron
Until then, in the event of a probable new gold medal on Saturday evening, Guillaume Cizeron will boast an ever more dizzying track record, after his two Olympic crowns (2022 and 2026), but also his five world titles (all acquired with Gabriella Papadakis), plus six European crowns. Who says better?
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