Laurence Fournier-Beaudry (formerly representing Canada, now representing France) and Guillaume Cizeron (France) formed a controversial ice dance partnership in March 2025. In their single season competing together, they have won a silver medal at the Grand Prix Final and repeatedly gone viral on TikTok. They are favorites for a medal at the 2026 Milan Olympics. Our goal in publishing this piece is to raise public awareness of the allegations of abuse and sexual assault apologism surrounding their partnership, especially as figure skating enters the mainstream during the Olympics. This text is intended as a simple primer. We will also be publishing a comprehensive timeline in the near future. Please note that this text includes graphic descriptions of sexual assault.
Laurence Fournier-Beaudry began competing with her former ice dance partner (and current boyfriend) Nikolaj Sørensen in February 2012. They initially competed for Denmark (Sørensen’s home country) before switching to Canada (Fournier-Beaudry’s home country) in 2018. They placed ninth at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
In July 2023, an unnamed American skater and coach filed a report with the Canadian Office of Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC), describing how Sørensen had sexually assaulted her at a party in Hartford, Connecticut, in April 2012. She made the report after reading an interview with Sørensen in which he discussed the importance of keeping women safe in ice dance. She went through OSIC after learning that the statute of limitations for filing a criminal complaint had passed. OSIC opened an investigation into Sørensen. Her description of the assault is below.
“He pinned me down with his left arm over my collarbone. He pushed down hard on my collarbone, making me gasp for air the moment he inserted his penis into my vagina and covered his right hand over my mouth. [...] All sound at that point became virtually inaudible and it felt like I would suffocate under the pressure of his arm on my collarbone and chest. I pushed my arms against his hips to try to get his penis out of me and I was struggling to breathe. At this point, I feared for my life and let my body go limp as I lay there and he raped me.” (Source)
In January 2024, journalist Christine Brennan broke the story in USA Today for the first time. Sørensen made an Instagram post denying the allegation. His ice dance partner and girlfriend, Laurence Fournier-Beaudry, also made a (now-deleted) Instagram post stating:
“As you can imagine, this is a very challenging situation. While I strongly believe everyone must be protected and safe in sport, I know that my partner is a man of integrity, respect and kindness.” (Source)
Fournier-Beaudry and Sørensen withdrew from Canadian nationals when the news initially broke, but then went on to compete at the 4 Continents Championships and World Championships.
In October 2024, the OSIC investigation concluded. Sørensen was suspended from ice dance for six years for “sexual maltreatment” (Source). Sørensen appealed the decision to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC), an independent arbitration body that handles appeals to OSIC decisions.
In December 2024, the 2022 Olympic gold medalists Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France formally announced the dissolution of their partnership. They had not competed together since 2022. Since retiring, Papadakis has been outspoken about the abuse and toxicity she endured during her career (Source). Her memoir, to be released in January 2026, will contain further information about their split. This text will be updated as more information becomes available.
Papadakis/Cizeron trained with Fournier-Beaudry/Sørensen for years at the Ice Academy of Montreal (IAM). Cizeron maintained a close relationship with Fournier-Beaudry and Sørensen after the assault allegations were made public.
In March 2025, Fournier-Beaudry and Cizeron announced their new partnership. They would compete for France. In May 2025, Fournier-Beaudry and Cizeron sat down for an interview with La Presse. Fournier-Beaudry made the following comment:
“It was certainly emotionally complicated to get through that episode. [These are] false and unsubstantiated allegations. I support Nik 100%. We were very close to each other, but this episode brought us closer together. Through this, in our sport, we often fall, but we learn to get back up and move forward.” (Source and Translation)
Cizeron followed up with his own comment.
“It was still very difficult to see them go through this ordeal. It's hard to see your friends suffer. Even as a fellow athlete, it's also hard to put yourself in the shoes of another athlete going through something like that. I think the hardest part is the sense of injustice. Stopping your career is something very difficult, and it's even more difficult when it's not you who decided, because it's really your whole life. It's not just an occupation. It's a passion that's driven us since we were children, and it's already a mourning process when everything goes well, even when we stop on a positive note. So to have it stolen from you, or to have the decision to stop stolen from you, any athlete can sympathize with those difficulties.” (Source and Translation)
In June 2025, the SDRCC overturned the Sørensen case on jurisdictional grounds, essentially arguing that Skate Canada could not sanction Sørensen for an incident that took place before he was competing for Canada. To reiterate — the Skate Canada ban was overturned not because of a lack of evidence, but because Sørensen wasn’t competing for Canada in 2012. OSIC appealed this decision and it is still being litigated (Source). A more detailed breakdown of the legal case can be found here and here. More information about the sexual assault reporting process in sports and its failures can be found here.
As we go into an Olympic Games with Fournier-Beaudry/Cizeron competing, we’ll conclude this primer with a quote from the survivor who came forward about Sørensen’s abuse.
“I hope the respondent’s coaches will reflect on how they handled this situation and the importance of their role as a leading ice dance program. The same responsibility belongs to figure skating commentators who downplayed the severity of the allegations during the airing of the world figure skating championships. I am sure I am not the only survivor who was distraught to hear the supportive comments made about them on air, completely belittling the experience of rape survivors and promoting the dangerous culture of victim silence in our sport.” (Source)