French ice skaters Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron took home the silver medal at the Olympics on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after a wardrobe malfunction that put their hopes in jeopardy.
During Monday's short program, Papadakis' top came undone and her breast was exposed as she attempted to simultaneously cover up and finish the routine. As a result, they entered Tuesday's free dance competition trailing the Canadian team, by 1.74 points.
The Olympic Broadcasting Service even showed slow-mo replays of the wardrobe malfunction, including on the big screen in the Gangneung Ice Arena, but NBC acted quickly during their live coverage and carefully selected replays to avoid further embarrassment for Papadakis.
“Our coverage of ice dancing was live tonight,” an NBC statement to the Associated Press read. “Once a competitor's brief wardrobe issue became evident, we purposely used wider camera shots and carefully selected replays to keep the issue obscured. We have edited the video for all television encores and online replays.”
Papadakis and Cizeron bounced back by setting a new world record for both the free skate and the total score. Their free skate score of 123.35 put them in first place, however the Canadians, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, broke their world record with a total score of 206.07 just moments later. Papadakis and Cizeron finished with 205.28 and a silver medal.
“It wasn’t easy to get back on the ice today but I think we were ready for whatever after what happened yesterday,” Cizeron said. “We were like, ‘Bring it on. We’ll deal with whatever.’ ”
"It was a really great performance," Papadakis said. "We couldn't have skated better. It was amazing to deliver what we did today for our first Olympics."