A picture-perfect moment capped off a two-and-a-half year wait for U.S. ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates.
The partners, on and off the ice, received their long-awaited gold medals on Wednesday as part of the reallocation ceremony for the Olympic figure skating team event, in which the U.S. figure skating team won gold at the 2022 Olympics.
Madison was seen wiping away tears as the team finally enjoyed their moment in front of a full and supportive crowd.
Chock told NBCOlympics.com, “Honestly, it feels unreal at the moment. It's surreal. We're just looking out at the Eiffel Tower and every time I look at it, I just have to pinch myself because we're here and I, I can't believe that it's really happening. After two and a half years of waiting, we're getting our Olympic gold medal and not just anywhere, we're getting it under the Eiffel Tower at a Summer Olympics.”
The ceremony took place at Champions Park in front of a full crowd of family and fans — something that wouldn’t have been possible in Beijing. That silver lining isn’t lost on the now married couple.
Bates remarked, “I think it's kind of the best-case scenario in an otherwise, sometimes challenging situation. We're so grateful that we still get to have the Olympic medal ceremony… it has been worth the wait. I think it's really, really exciting. Everybody's here. The energy in Paris is just absolutely incredible. We've never been to a summer Games before, so it's really fun for us to be here.“
Even though the results were known by the time the U.S. team departed Beijing, they left empty handed with no medals — a decision made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to not hand out any medals in the event until the legal process had played out.
What some thought might be months turned into years before the U.S. and Japan received medals. Right before the Paris Olympics held its Opening Ceremony, the final appeal settled and the athletes from the U.S. and Japan were invited to the Games to receive their medals in a long-awaited moment.
“It's so meaningful to be able to close that chapter of the Olympics at an Olympics,” Madison excitedly declared.
“I can't describe the feeling of excitement and elation that has just been coursing through my body since we found out and since we've arrived here in Paris. It's really special and we're just so grateful to the IOC and the USOPC and CAS for all their work and making sure that our due diligence was done and allowing us to have this special moment and share it with our families.”
Chock and Bates summer of love
It’s been a summer of celebration for Chock and Bates. The couple got married in Hawaii in June.
“We've had the best summer ever,” declared Bates, while Chock chimed in, “Best summer of our lives!”
In a sport that demands a lot of time away from family for competition and training, they’re grateful to have two big moments that everyone could share. They had a large contingent of family in Paris, including parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The happy couple said it’s so much bigger than them.
“I feel like we've just been really fortunate to have some incredible life moments happen consecutively here in a couple of weeks span.”
Bates called getting married the "best week of his life" and receiving their gold medal a close second. The best part about getting married?
"Just so wonderful to have all the people that we love in one place and to see them all and to just be surrounded and enveloped in their love and happiness."
He followed up, "I don't think I've ever hugged so many people as I did in that one day. It was so nice, obviously being in Hawaii and being in that setting, but also like everybody had a huge smile on their faces. That was just genuine joy and happiness for us, and being there to support us."
Chock and Bates set sights on Los Angeles 2028
After just missing the podium in the ice dance event in Tokyo, the couple has been on a tear at the international level. In 2023, they became just the second U.S. ice dance team to go undefeated in a calendar year. They became the first U.S. ice dance team to win back-to-back orld titles at the 2024 World Championships, where they won their fifth world medal — the most ever for a U.S. ice dance team.
“We're so grateful to just be in our prime and we feel like we are continuing to make improvements and keep finding new ways to make these little gains on the ice and be inspired," she said. "We've got a lot to look forward to and we're really excited for what the future holds and just continuing to be creative and using skating as our outlet. It's our passion.”
An Olympic individual medal is the only thing missing from their resume, and until now, the pair had taken a season-by-season approach to their future. Maybe it was the spirit of the games surrounding the them in Paris or finally receiving their medal, but they didn’t shy away from talking about Milan when asked if an individual Olympic medal was their goal.
Bates elaborated, “Yes, definitely. We were definitely fueled by a fourth-place finish in an individual event in Beijing… You know, we really wanted to always push for Milan… We wanted to just take it season-by-season to just not get ahead of ourselves, but it's definitely been on our minds. And that's certainly a goal as we get closer to Milan.”
When asked if they’re a bit like fine wine, that gets better with age, the couple chuckled.
“I don't think we're alone in that. It seems like it's really happening in a lot of sports, LeBron (James) at 39… It's like Novak (Djokovik). It's a lot of incredible, inspiring stories of these athletes,” Bates answered.
Even though the pair has been collecting medals and titles of late, their age and experience have provided perspective. For them, it’s making sure they’re still happy competing and improving.
“We are getting older, but we do like Maddie said, like, we really feel like we're still getting better and we're improving. That's always sort of the motivation, not just going for medals, but really trying to improve in our craft and staying passionate about that.”
Many of their Beijing teammates have already moved on from competing in figure skating, and with gold medals in hand it’d be easy to understand if they also moved on, but for Chock and Bates, being a pair on-and-off the ice is what allows them to keep going.
“We've just been able to share this passion for figure skating between the two of us and being together as a couple and doing what you love makes it all that much easier to continue.”
“If we had other partners, we probably [would] want to move on to our lives with our partners, but my partner on the ice is my partner off the ice so we can share this common goal and really see it through as far as we like, as far as we would want to take it.”
For the ice dancing duo, that journey will likely take them to Milan, this time hopefully leaving with a gold medal in hand.