The curling carnage continues after Friday's (13 February) F-bomb laced match between Canada and Sweden.
Quickly going viral online, the Winter Olympics game boiled over with Swedish athlete Oscar Eriksson accusing Canadian third Marc Kennedy of cheating.
He claimed Team Canada was double touching the stone, leading to some ‘f**k offs’ being sent his way on the ice.
World Curling ended up issuing a warning and making some tweaks to the umpiring for yesterday’s matches.
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However, Canada has been accused of cheating again, this time during last night’s clash with Switzerland. Apparently, the Swiss reckon their opponents were once again double touching.
For those who haven’t also become a self-labelled curling expert in the past week, double touching isn’t totally banned in the sport – it’s all about when.
Basically, 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’.
The problem comes in if a touch occurs within that hog line – which is what Canada has been accused of doing.
Swiss curler Pablo Lachat-Couchepin was reportedly heard telling a coach that he saw the opponents doing a double touch and that he wasn’t the only one to spot it.
“I don’t want to focus too much on it, but he double touched, and the referee saw it,” he is quoted as saying, according to the Toronto Star.
It’s not totally clear if Canada was made aware of these complaints during the match.
The Canadians lost to the Swiss 9-5. Skippered by Brad Jacobs, they have five games remaining as they bid to qualify for the knockout rounds.
Following Friday’s row, Kennedy told reporters: “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.”
And in World Curling’s update, it clarified the rules in an email to teams.
“A double touch of the stone handle before the hog line at the delivery end is allowed,” it explained. “A re-touch of the stone handle after the hog line at the delivery end is not allowed and detected by the new handles.
“A stone must be delivered by using the handle of the stone. Touching the granite at any time during the forward motion is not allowed and considered a touched moving stone which results in the stone being removed from play.”
LADbible Group has contacted Curling Canada for comment.
Topics: Winter Olympics, Sport
Jess Battison