If you’ve been watching the Winter Olympics, you know how truly mesmerizing it is. My personal favorite sport to watch is the ice skating—I’m not sure what it is, but the way these skaters move their bodies about on the ice so gracefully is absolutely incredible.
Unfortunately, sometimes the competitors move their bodies so much that their outfit suffers. That’s just what happened to 22-year-old French figure skater Gabriella Papadakis on Monday, February 19 during her performance with partner Guillaume Cizeron at the Pyeongchang skating arena in South Korea.
The two were dancing to Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” and all was going well. And then the unthinkable happened: The clasp on her sparkly yellow and green ensemble became undone, revealing her left nipple and breast—yes, on live TV.
The poor girl described the wardrobe malfunction as her “worst nightmare.” You wouldn’t know she was silently freaking out though, since Gabriella kept her cool and nonchalantly reattached the hook before continuing.
Even with the mishap, she and her partner managed to come in an impressive second place with a score of 81.93. That’s pretty remarkable, because this kind of thing can really throw you off from a performance.
“I felt it right away and prayed. It was pretty distracting,” Gabriella stated. “My worst nightmare at the Olympics. I told myself ‘you have to keep going’. That’s what we did, and we have to be proud of ourselves, delivering a great performance with that happening.”
Her skating partner, Guillaume, couldn’t agree more.
“It was a tough one, considering the issue with the costume that we had, but we still managed to keep our focus and enjoy the moment,” Guillaume said. “It could have been better for sure, but what is done is done and we have to look forward now.”
Many fans and even other Olympians came to Gabriella’s defense via social media outlets such as Twitter. For example, Olympic champion Meaghan Duhamel tweeted:
“Devastating…a costume malfunction can be such a disturbance mentally. I’m sad for them that this happened at this moment.”
There were lots of other positive, heartwarming words as well. For example, one fan tweeted:
“I feel so bad for Gabriella Papadakis with that wardrobe malfunction during their ice dance short program. But I applaud her for pushing through and never giving up till the end! #olympics #PyeongChang2018.”
Another called her a hero, tweeting:
“Gabriella Papadakis skating a full short program with a wardrobe malfunction is true heroism.”
The devastation was thankfully short-lived, as Gabriella and Guillaume took home their silver medal with pride. Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were the ones who took home the gold, posting a world record score of 83.67.
We know what you’re thinking: Could this have been the only wardrobe malfunction in the Olympics?
Nope—actually, South Korean ice skater Yura Min also endured one when she was performing with her partner Alexander Gamelin. Just a few seconds into her routine, her red dress slipped, barely staying on and she had to continuously keep adjusting the top of it during her entire performance.
Man, these professional ice skaters really know how to concentrate, even when they know they’re accidentally being exposed. We think that’s pretty impressive.
For more on Gabriella’s incident, watch the video below!
Did you watch Gabriella’s performance live? What do you think of this Olympian nip slip?