Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron on Olympic triumph: "It's more for our story than the actual medal"

Gabriella Papadakis was so nervous before taking to the ice at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 that she could hear her heart thumping in her chest.

“I honestly thought I was going to have a heart attack,” the French ice dancer told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview following her golden triumph with partner Guillaume Cizeron.

“It was this, ‘Boom, boom, boom, boom.’ And I was trying to pretend that I was OK.”

But Papadakis found the right mentality even in the eye of the storm: “I was trying to tell myself when I was freaking out that I usually skate better when I'm stressed. And I had never been this stressed before. So [I decided] I'm going to skate my best ever.”

She and Cizeron would skate their best ever in the rhythm dance. In fact, they set a new world record of 90.83 to take a two-point lead into the free dance, and 36 hours later claimed the gold medal that had eluded them at PyeongChang 2018 when they took silver.

It capped an entire Olympic cycle of building anticipation, expectation and pressure, which was beset by one surprise issue after another, namely just two major international events in the 24 months leading up to Beijing.

Their wardrobe malfunction of 2018 behind them, and four world titles now not their main calling card – Papadakis/Cizeron’s golden moment was 20 years in the making, since they had begun skating together as children.

But the final few days of their skating for the gold could be classified as some of the most challenging.

Guillaume Cizeron: ‘It’s such a mental game’

“Honestly, it's such a mental game,” Cizeron, 27, confirmed. “They should be called the mental Olympic Games.”

While Papadakis would feel the pressure most before the duo took to the ice for the rhythm dance (12 February), Cizeron’s moment came the day before when they had finished their second practice inside the Capital Indoor Stadium.

He texted his team, including coaches Romain Haguenauer and Marie-France Dubreuil.

“Should we do this?” the text read, regarding the option to use the practice facility the night before the rhythm dance. “Or am I crazy? Just tell me if I'm crazy, but I want to do it.”

So they did. An evening practice with just one other team on the ice, no judges, and a chance to get more settled on Olympic ice having watched some of their rivals and training mates skate once or twice in the figure skating team event the few days prior.

“I was really surprised, but I just wanted to feel grounded and get a little bit of the feeling that we normally have in Montreal,” Cizeron continued. “Just calm and quiet. The next day, I was so happy that we did it because... Everything felt better.”

Head-to-head with Sinitsina/Katsalapov

While they worked through their respective nerves, Papadakis, 26, said they were not spending energy tracking the only team who had beaten them since 2018 - and in their most recent meeting, albeit pre-pandemic, the 2020 European Championships - reigning world champions Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov.

Were they paying attention to the ROC duo in the days leading up to the dance event?

“Well, I'm not,” Papadakis replied honestly. "I am not watching what other people are doing and how other people skate at all. The only thing I can control is how we skate. It’s the only thing that matters for me.

"The only thing I focus on is me and [Guillaume] and our skating. Not even him, just me. What we do on the ice. And I don't care what other people are doing if we skate great and they win, then good.”

While Papadakis/Cizeron had watched as their Montreal training mates beat the ROC team in the team event (Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue in the rhythm dance; Madison Chock and Evan Bates in the free), they maintained a sole focus on what they needed to do, which – harkening back to the extra practice and pre-rhythm dance nerves – provided plenty of hurdles.

Papadakis continued: “There is no point in being stressed or being anxious about what they're doing or being terrified when I see them. There's no point in that. I'm not really watching them.”

Writing a new ending vs. 2018

Four years previously, Papdakis/Cizeron headed into the Games with a showdown set against Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, but a wardrobe malfunction for Papadakis in the opening seconds of the rhythm dance threw their Olympic experience into a whirlwind – and all but guaranteed them a second-place finish.

They would build on their brilliant rhythm dance in Beijing, their “Elegie” free dance also earning top marks and helping them to secure one of five golds for France at the Games, as they made amends for PyeongChang.

“We wanted to rewrite this chapter of our career,” confirmed Cizeron. “It's more for the story than the actual medal. It was a disappointment to get the silver four years ago... We want history to say they didn't win four years ago, but they won this time. I think that's what we're thinking about.”

Papadakis said she isn’t sure if she thought about PyeongChang subconsciously as they skated in Beijing, but that wardrobe malfunction was definitely not on her mind.

“I'm not thinking about four years ago when I entered the ice,” she said. “Maybe there is a subconscious part of me that kind of feels maybe the way that I felt four years ago... I know there is a part of me that is kind of feeling the disappointment of four years ago, and that doesn't want to repeat it.

"But it's not about the costume: It's more about not enjoying the moment and not just experiencing the Olympic Games completely fully. Because four years ago when I was on the ice, I was not experiencing the Olympic Games. I was just trying to save the performance. I was not present in my body. I didn't want to repeat that."

Cizeron said he feels as though this is just the way things were meant to turn out – 2018 included.

“It was a lot of work going through that,” he said,” “but it kind of felt like winning the gold here gave a reason for that to happen. I think it feels better for us to finish that chapter with the gold medal.

"We didn't win four years ago, but it fuelled us to win this time. We don't know what would have happened if we had won four years ago. Maybe we wouldn't be here. Maybe we wouldn't have had the motivation, the drive to win this time.

“I'm just... I’m just happy that this is what happened.”