Madison Chock and Evan Bates opened their Olympic season in the same place that they hope to finish it: atop the standings.
Chock and Bates, three-time reigning world champions, swept Friday’s rhythm dance and Saturday’s free dance at Cup of China, their first of two Grand Prix Series regular season events this fall.
They totaled 208.25 points, leading a U.S. one-two with Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik (202.27), whose previous best Grand Prix finish was fifth.
“We’re thrilled with how it went and looking forward to growing this (free dance) program for the future,” Bates said.
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Chock, 33, and Bates, 36, bid for their fourth Olympics together this season, and their first Olympic dance medal after previously winning team event gold in 2022.
Back in March, Chock called this season a “final chapter,” though the married couple has not officially announced whether it will be their last campaign.
Though Chock and Bates dominated dance the last three seasons, a new challenge just emerged ahead of the 2026 Milan Cortina Games.
Last week, France’s Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry scored 211.02 points to win the first Grand Prix event in France in their international debut.
Their score would have been closer to 220 without a fluke fall, a total that would have rivaled Chock and Bates’ best scores last season.
The two couples who share coaches at the Ice Academy of Montreal could face off at December’s Grand Prix Final.
Cizeron won 2022 Olympic dance gold and five world titles with Gabriella Papadakis, then returned after three years away with Fournier Beaudry, a 2022 Canadian Olympian who is in the process of obtaining French citizenship to become eligible for Milan Cortina.
Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron’s free dance score on home ice last week -- 133.02 -- was 9.21 points better than Chock and Bates’ free dance debut Saturday performed to “Paint It, Black” from the Westworld soundtrack. Comparing scores between competitions is not exact, but 9.21 is a significant gap.
Also at Cup of China, Zingas and Kolesnik, who were fourth at last season’s U.S. Championships, boosted their hopes of being one of three couples picked for the Olympic team after this January’s nationals.
“I feel like I won the Olympics, but this is just a silver medal at a Grand Prix,“ Kolesnik said, according to the International Skating Union.
Their 202.27 was a personal best by 6.2 points. Last season, only Chock and Bates and U.S. silver medalists Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko scored higher than 202.27 across all international events.
Zingas and Kolesnik’s competition for an Olympic spot includes Caroline Green and Michael Parsons. Green and Parsons, the U.S. bronze medalists, were seventh in the Cup of China rhythm dance, then withdrew after being announced for their free dance due to injury, according to Golden Skate.
Another potential Olympic team contender, 2018 Olympic bronze medalists Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani, are slated to compete next month for the first time since the 2018 PyeongChang Games.
Cup of China highlights air Saturday at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.
The Grand Prix Series continues with Skate Canada next Friday through Sunday, all live on Peacock.
