The Associated Press Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States compete during the rhythm dance in figure skating.

MILAN — Madison Chock and Evan Bates have ground to make up in their pursuit of ice dance gold at the Milano Cortina Olympics.

The three-time world champions made the slightest mistake on their pattern step as the final couple on the ice Monday night, and it left them trailing Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron by the slimmest of margins going into the free dance.

The new French couple scored 90.18 points early in the night, hours before Chock and Bates performed at the Milano Ice Skating Arena. The score held up the rest of the way with the Americans, fresh off helping to defend their team gold medal 24 hours earlier, earning 89.72 points for their Lenny Kravitz-inspired rock-and-roll rhythm dance.

Chock and Bates had scored a world-leading 91.06 points for the same program during the team competition.

“The game is always on. You should know us by now,” Chock said afterward, flashing a grin. “We’re not changing anything. We’ve got this locked in, locked in where we know ourselves, know our routine. And yeah, we’ve got this.”

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada were third with 86.18 points in a tight race for the podium ahead of the free dance Wednesday night. Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson were fourth as they try to give Britain its first figure skating medal since 1994.

The future of U.S. ice dancing, Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, were in fifth with 83.53 points.

Leerdam wins

There is little question that Jutta Leerdam and her fiancé, YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul, have brought new eyeballs to speedskating with all of their millions of followers on social media. Now all of those people who have been introduced to her sport saw Leerdam become an Olympic champion.

Stepping to the line well aware that her talented Dutch teammate, Femke Kok, had bettered the event’s existing Winter Games record two heats earlier Monday, and with Paul getting out of his second-row seat to cheer, Leerdam lowered that mark even further and won in 1 minute, 12.31 seconds at the Milan Cortina Olympics.

“Everyone saw how hard of a position I had in the last pair, after a super good time. For everyone, it was surreal,” said Leerdam, who was up against defending champion Miho Takagi of Japan in the day’s final heat. “It feels very amazing. Just like a cherry on top of my career, basically. It’s amazing. It’s perfect.”

In front of a raucous crowd of orange-clad fans from her speedskating-loving nation, 2022 silver medalist Leerdam never strayed from her steady strides until she’d crossed the finish line. Then she threw an arm overhead and let out a shout.

Soon, she was along the boards near where Paul was. Leerdam blew him kisses and formed a heart shape with her hands as tears — and mascara — streaked her cheeks.

“My makeup was everywhere,” Leerdam said later with a laugh. “But that’s a good thing, I think.”

Elsewhere:

n Philipp Raimund of Germany won gold in the men’s normal hill ski jump. He led a group of Olympic rookies and a veteran past former medalists and world champions. Kacper Tomasiak of Poland took silver.

n Mathilde Gremaud successfully defended her Olympic freeski slopestyle title and denied Eileen Gu a gold medal for a second straight Winter Games. Gremaud won Monday’s final with a score of 86.96 from her best of three jumps. Gu again took silver behind her Swiss rival with a best jump of 86.58. Gu, who was born in America but competes for China, became a global star at the 2022 Beijing Games.

n Japanese snowboarder Kokomo Murase won Olympic gold in women’s big air two days after her teammates swept the top two medals in the men’s event. Murase had already locked up at least a bronze medal when she went for broke on her last jump and nailed it to move to the top of the standings. She added the gold medal to her bronze from the same event at the 2022 Beijing Games. Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand repeated as silver medalist. She had been on the cusp of taking gold until Murase soared in front.

n Swiss skier Franjo von Allmen’s first Winter Olympics couldn’t be going any better. He has two golds in the opening three days of competition. Von Allmen partnered with Tanguy Nef to win the team combined in the event’s Olympic debut, two days after becoming downhill champion for the first gold medal of the Milan Cortina Games.