“Sinister energy” triumphed over the heartwarming story Wednesday.

France’s polarizing figure skating duo of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron narrowly edged America’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates to win gold in the ice dance competition at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

For as exciting as the competition may have been, with the French team’s 225.82 score just beating Team USA’s 224.39 mark, the off-the-ice drama made the result all the more intriguing.

The French duo has found themselves in the middle of controversy over the past few years, especially with the release of Netflix’s “Glitter & Gold” documentary, which was released earlier this month.

Former Team USA figure skater-turned-media personality Adam Rippon reportedly said of the two in the documentary: “There is some sinister energy around the partnership.”

The Americans, meanwhile, aimed for their first gold medal in ice dancing.

How the French duo came to be even be partners is quite controversial.

Cizeron used to pair with Gabriella Papadakis, and they won gold in 2022, but she released a book in January, “So As Not To Disappear,” in which she said she was afraid of being alone with her partner and accused him of controlling and domineering behavior, according to Time.

Her book used the terms “controlling,” “demanding” and “being under his grip,” per the AP, allegations which he pushed back against last month.

“In the face of the smear campaign targeting me, I want to express my incomprehension and my disagreement with the labels being attributed to me,” Cizeron said, according to the Associated Press. “These allegations arise at a particularly sensitive time … thereby raising questions about the underlying intentions behind this campaign.

“I also wish to denounce the content of the book, which contains false information attributing to me, among other things, statements I have never made and which I consider serious.”

Beyond the deterioration of the relationship, Papadakis also retired in 2024 and removed herself from her training facility because of Beaudry’s boyfriend and former partner, Nikolaj Sorensen, who trained at the Ice Academy of Montreal, according to Time.

Sorenson received a minimum six-year ban in 2024 for “sexual maltreatment,” as announced by Canada’s Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC), per CNN.

The OSIC investigated an allegation of a 2012 sexual assault of an American figure skater and coach, the outlet reported at the time.

Sorenson has denied the allegations, and the ban was overturned in 2025.

With her boyfriend banned, Beaudry found a new partner in Cizeron.

She defended Sorenson in the documentary.

“I know my boyfriend 100 percent. I know him. And we [stood] strong together,” she said, per Time.

The Beaudry-Cizeron pairing worked quite well together to take home the gold medal on Wednesday, and Cizeron discussed the situations that brought them together.

“From the beginning, we tried to create a bubble where we really supported each other through everything,” Cizeron said, per Time. “We’ve been through some incredibly hard moments. But the love we have for each other and for the sport brought us through. It helped us refocus on enjoying those moments together, because they don’t last forever, and we didn’t want that taken away from us.”

Their win left the Americans’ husband-wife combo potentially without a gold medal in their fourth and what could be final Olympic Games.

“I’m not sure,” Bates said after being asked if this was their last competition, according to USA Today.

The pair are three-time and reigning world ice dance champions, but had never won an individual medal before their second-place finish Wednesday.

Their story had many pulling for them to have a Hollywood — or, in this case, Milan — ending to their careers, but they fell just short.

“It was our gold-medal performance. It was the best that we could skate,” Bates said, per USA Today. “It was a personal best score. It was a fourth performance over six days. It took a lot of mental strength and discipline to be locked in and to continue to go out and skate well and we did everything that we could.”