World-record French pair twist and twirl to glory

French figure skaters Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron said it felt "completely unreal" as they won their first Olympic gold in ice dancing Monday, breaking their own world record in the process.

The duo, who scored 226.98 in total in Beijing to beat their previous high score of 226.61, are five-time European and four-time world champions.

But it is their first Olympic title after coming second at the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018, when an unfortunate problem with Papadakis' costume disrupted their performance.

This time, sleek in shimmering red and gold, there were no such issues as they spun across the ice to Elegie by Gabriel Faure.

"I think we don't believe it yet,"26-year-old Papadakis said. "Honestly it feels completely unreal.

"For years this was the only medal that we wanted and the past four years were just about that moment."

ROC's Nikita Katsalapov and Victoria Sinitsina, the reigning European and world champions after the French skipped those competitions because of COVID-19, had to settle for silver.

Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue took bronze in what they said will be their last Olympics.

Papadakis and Cizeron went into the free dance after another record-breaking performance in the rhythm dance on Saturday. They came close to breaking another of their own world bests with their free dance score of 136.15.

Cizeron said that dancing on Monday was "like time stops".

"We just relied on our trust and we borrowed energy from all of our teammates and coaches," he said.

The 27-year-old is the first openly gay man to win gold in an individual Olympic figure skating event-Canada's Eric Radford won a gold in 2018, but in the team event.

Cizeron said Elegie was "a melting pot of all the extreme emotions we can feel as humans and what we have been through ourselves, through our lives and through our careers".

Sinitsina and Katsalapov rippled through their passionate interpretation of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No 2, earning 131.66 for an overall score of 220.51.

"I was so aware of every single motion that the entire program was both very swift and very emotional for me, I wanted to shout out at the end," Sinitsina said.

AFP