Winter Olympics carnage as Canada accused of cheating and Sweden told to 'f*** off'

We’ve had a full week of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games now and it’s fair to say they’ve not disappointed.

From becoming obsessed with sports we didn’t realise existed a month ago to cheering on our teams, there’s been plenty to get gripped on to.

I mean, and that’s not even considering all of the drama, like athletes breaking their medals or publicly confessing to cheating. And now we’ve had some carnage at the curling to add to the viral moments.

Yep, who’d have thought curlers had so much fire in them when they’re sending their stones down the ice?

Well, in yesterday’s (13 February) Winter Olympic match between Canada and Sweden, there were cheating accusations and profanities flying as one athlete was told to ‘f**k off’.

Skipped by Brad Jacobs, the Canadian team came out on top at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium with an 8-6 win.

But that was as they rumbled through the ninth round with things almost boiling over as Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson made strong claims about the Canadian third, Marc Kennedy.

The Swede alleged that he was double-touching the stones.

OK, so, according to a 2023 rule book from the World Curling Federation, ‘a double touch by the person delivering the stone, prior the hog line at the delivering end, is not considered a violation’. However, there is a problem if a touch occurs inside that hog line.

But Eriksson alleged the Canadian was cheating with Kennedy’s response captured on a broadcast.

“I haven’t done it once,” he said on the ice. “You can f**k off.”

“I’ll show you a video after the game,” the Swede insisted, not backing down on his claims. “I’ll show you a video where it’s two metres over the hog line.”

And Kennedy was having none of it: “Come on, Oskar. Just f**k off.”

The match ended up being paused as Eriksson said to the judges: “You saw it. You saw the touching, right? So is he allowed to do it or not?”

While some social media users may claim a viral clip shows Kennedy was ‘cheating’, the judge said it couldn’t be for certain and no infractions were issued.

The Canadian accused the Swedes of ‘grasping for straws’ as he told reporters afterwards: “I have a ton of respect for Oskar Eriksson. He’s one of the best players to ever play. I just told him … I would never accuse you of cheating. I’ve been on tour for 25 years. He pulled a hog line official on us to make sure we weren’t double-touching. The hog line official was there for six ends, never said a thing, and he’s still talking about it in the ninth end.”

He went on to add: “I don’t like being accused of cheating, so I told him what I thought of it. It’s good for sport guys, it gets heated out there, it’s a battle, we’ve played each other a million times.”

Swedish team leader Fredrik Lindberg said in a statement that the ‘Swedish Olympic Committee will not seek an investigation regarding the events’ of the game.