Germany's gold medal in the figure skating pairs was an unlikely triumph in more ways than one. That only made their record-setting performance all the sweeter for Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot.

They seem like an unlikely couple to be winning gold for Germany at the Winter Olympics.

When you listen to Bruno Massot speaking German, it quickly becomes clear that he is not a native of the country that he happens to be competing for – his accent unmistakably betrays his origins in the French city of Caen.

In fact, Massot, who only turned to his adopted country so that he could team up with Aljona Savchenko, the grand dame of pairs skating, was only granted his German citizenship last November.

Savchenko, who at 34 is five years Massot's senior, also speaks German with a foreign accent – she was born in the Kiev region of Ukraine, the country she represented in her first Olympic Games, in Salt Lake City in 2002.

The FFSG had reportedly initially demanded that Massot pay a release fee of €70,000 ($87,000), but later agreed to a payment of less than half that.