Before the free dance scheduled for Monday morning - and traditionally their strong point - Papadakis and Cizeron (26 and 27), burgundy costumes with transparency, were rewarded with 90.83 points at the end of their performance on the imposed theme of urban music.

Better than their previous world record (90.03 pts at the end of 2019) and almost two points ahead of the Russians Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov (88.85, personal best), the reigning world champions and double European champions.

Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue placed third (87.13).

The sigh of relief breathed by Papadakis at the end of their performance was not deceiving.

"We were very disappointed after the short program four years ago. We didn't want to relive that feeling, she admits. We wanted to be happy with what we had done."

"There's a lot of relief, because it's a lot of stress to perform here. There's also a lot of happiness to have been able to perform up to our expectations and to have had fun on the ice" , adds Cizeron.

Unlike what they had experienced on the Olympic ice in Pyeongchang (South Korea) in 2018, when the top of the skater's dress had come off from the first seconds of their short dance.

They had dominated the free dance the next day but it was around the necks of Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, their No.1 rivals and training partners in Montreal, that the gold medal had been passed.

Superstition

No disaster scenario this time.

As they skated in the penultimate group and five pairs had yet to go, Papadakis and Cizeron topped 90 points with their waacking-inspired rhythm dance, born in gay clubs in Los Angeles in the 1990s. 1970.

Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron impressive in rhythmic dance at the Beijing Games, February 12, 2022 Manan VATSYAYANA AFP

"We are super happy with the performance," said Papadakis.

"We were very stressed. We haven't had an easy last few years, we missed competitions, everything didn't go the way we wanted," she recalled.

It must be said that the 2022 Olympics come at the end of an unusual second half of the Olympiad for Papadakis and Cizeron.

The French dancers went twenty months without skating between their narrow defeat in January 2020 at the European Championships (their only one since the 2018 Olympics) and last October, mainly because of the Covid-19 pandemic and travel difficulties inherent for them who have lived in Montreal since 2014.

Since their return in the fall, they have won the three international competitions in which they have participated but preferred, as a health precaution, to give up the European Championships a month ago.

So much so that it was the first time in more than two years that they were competing against the very best dancers in the world.

"There is a form of liberation, recognizes Cizeron. The introduction is always the most stressful in a competition."

Dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron brilliant at the Beijing Games, February 12, 2022 Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV AFP

They now have to do the second half of the journey on Monday.

Until then, China has always been successful for them (first Grand Prix won, first Worlds won in 2015).

"We are not superstitious, smiles Papadakis. But all that we can take positive, we take it!"

© 2022 AFP