Canadian figure skater Laurence Fournier Beaudry has formed a partnership with Olympic ice dance champion Guillaume Cizeron months after former partner Nikolaj Soerensen 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.
“Today the universe offers us a new adventure,” Cizeron wrote in an Instagram post under a photo of himself and Fournier Beaudry. “A duo born from friendship, respect and love for the sport. A dance written by the years and fueled by the fire of our dreams. A new story begins.”
Although the post did not specify which country they would represent, the 32-year-old Fournier Beaudry is now listed under the France flag on the International Skating Union’s website.
Skate Canada issued the ban for Soerensen 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.
Soerensen has denied the allegation, which has not been tested in court.
Soerensen 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 Soerensen. 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.