Figure skating: The French duo Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry win gold at the French Grand Prix

This first place for the French duo Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry, suggests promising potential in the run-up to the Milan Winter Olympics

The French duo shone for their first competition on the international scene. Guillaume Cizeron and his new partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry won the French Grand Prix after a captivating free dance on Sunday in Angers, suggesting promising potential at the Winter Olympics from Milan.

Third after the rhythm dance despite a fall at the end of the program, they managed to move up the rankings thanks to a wonderful performance during the free dance, skated to the music with mysterious hues from the soundtrack of the film “The Whale”.

A new partner

Their performance of the day was rewarded with 133.02 points, an already impressive score for the start of the season. The couple won with 211.02 points in total ahead of the British duo Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson (210.24 points). Lithuanians Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevicius take third place (201.05 points).

Olympic champion in 2022 alongside Gabriella Papadakis, Cizeron made his return this season with Laurence Fournier Beaudry as his new partner. Their first appearance in international competition was particularly anticipated, less than four months before the Milan Olympics. Their cover, however, was more eventful than expected and marked in particular by a last minute change of music for their rhythmic dance. On Saturday, an error at the very end of the program cost them valuable points, but the level demonstrated on Sunday allowed them to catch up and win by 0.8 points.

“A certain letting go”

“There is always apprehension obviously. It’s always a mixture of lots of emotions, fear, excitement”, Cizeron admitted. But I think that we manage, with each other’s experience and energy, to let go and get a little into our characters and into the magic of the moment. ”

This “magic” was felt on Sunday on the ice of the IcePark in Angers, where the 3,000 spectators seemed captivated by the duo. “We feel it a lot, we feel it before boarding, we also receive it a lot”, described Laurence Fournier Beaudry. “This free program, from the start, really touches us a lot”, added Cizeron. “Music, I don’t know what it does to us, but each movement has been really thought out, reflected on. It allows us, I think, a certain letting go and a sort of abandonment in the movement and going beyond the technique. ”

Great promises for the Milan Winter Olympics

As the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games approach, where Guillaume Cizeron will try to retain his title, this first victory suggests great promises for the duo, who have only been skating together since the start of the year. In Angers, they have already done better than Fear and Gibson, bronze medalists at the last Worlds, and surpassed the Italians Marco Fabbri and Charlène Guignard, three-time reigning European champions and only fourth (195.98).

Before the Games, they will still have the opportunity to skate their programs at the Finnish Grand Prix (November 21-23), certainly during the circuit final, at the beginning of December in Japan, then at the French Championships and the European Championships in January. The Angevin competition continues on Sunday with the men’s free program where the American Ilia Malinin seems well placed to win. Triple defending champion, Frenchman Adam Siao Him Fa is provisionally in 5th position.