Guillaume Cizeron and Gabriella Papadakis, gold medal at the 2022 Olympics, were on the set of C à vous, on France 5, this Tuesday, February 22, 2022. The opportunity to come back to the harassment they suffered.
The Beijing Olympics were an opportunity to get their revenge. Guillaume Cizeron and Gabriella Papadakis were gold medalists and, at the same time, achieved a world record. In the show It’s up to you, this Tuesday, February 22, 2022, they returned to this victory, but also the importance of figure skating in their lives. Indeed, the two partners spoke of the school bullying of which they were victims when they were teenagers.
“I think it was a bubble, a sphere in which I felt comfortable and where we could flourish”confided Guillaume Cizeron. “Being together, being able to express myself on the ice, having this place where I felt safe, where I was accepted by everyone, where I was valued with Gabriella , for sure it has helped us a lot at many times in our construction as teenagers, young adults. It has always been a guide in our lives, it has been a source of discipline, happiness, joy. We learned so much. It really shaped us as people.”
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Guillaume Cizeron victim of homophobia
For Gabriella Papadakis, skating is a sport that saved her life. “Skating, when we were young teenagers, was a bit where we felt the best. It allowed us to express ourselves and to have the freedom to be who we were.”
Even today, the two partners face discriminating attacks. Guillaume Cizeron, for example, had been the victim of homophobia on the part of a Russian judge before the Olympic Games, in October 2021. “It’s difficult to really know the intention behind it. I honestly think he was saying what he was thinking unfortunately. I don’t know if there was an intention to destabilize us. In any case, it’s missed and that didn’t destabilize us at all. We are very much in tune with who we are and the messages we want to convey”he explained before adding. “It’s sure that it’s a sport that suffers from a lot of clichés. (…) There is often this fantasy of the couple. People often ask us if we are in a relationship in life. People want to see this story of love.”