Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen of Canada perform their free dance in the ice dance competition at the 2024 ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Montreal, Saturday, March 23, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi
March 02, 2025 - 11:21 AM
Canadian figure skater Laurence Fournier Beaudry has formed a partnership with Olympic ice dance champion Guillaume Cizeron months after former partner Nikolaj Sorensen was handed a six-year suspension for "sexual maltreatment."
Cizeron announced the new partnership Sunday on social media. A release from the French Federation of Ice Sports confirmed the pair will compete for France.
Skate Canada issued the ban for Sorensen in October following an investigation by the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner into an allegation that he sexually assaulted an American figure skating coach and former skater in Hartford, Conn., in 2012.
Sorensen has denied the allegation, which has not been tested in court.
Sorensen competed for Denmark, the country of his birth, before switching allegiance to Canada when Beaudry, who is from Montreal, was unable to obtain Danish citizenship before the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
They won the national ice dance title at the 2023 Canadian championships in Oshawa, Ont., and the pair represented Canada at the 2022 Beijing Games.
The pair withdrew from the Canadian figure skating championships in Calgary in January 2024 due to the allegations against Sorensen. But two months later they competed at the world championships in their home base of Montreal, where they finished ninth.
They also won a silver medal at the Four Continents event in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Cizeron was previously part of a decorated team with Gabriella Papadakis which won five world titles and gold at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Papadakis and Cizeron announced in June 2022 they were going on hiatus, and officially announced the end of their partnership in December.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2025.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2025