Canada faces new cheating allegations at Milan Cortina as Olympic curling controversy grows
Canada has faced renewed accusations of cheating after a member of the Swiss men’s curling team raised concerns of double-touching during their round-robin game on Saturday. The allegations came shortly after World Curling made adjustments to officiating following the first claims made against Canada’s Marc Kennedy.
Switzerland became the sole unbeaten team at Milan Cortina after defeating Canada 9-5 in their fourth straight win, but the victory did not come without controversy.
Swiss curler Pablo Lachat-Couchepin was captured on the broadcast talking to his coach during a fifth-end break in which he mentioned that he witnessed double-touching.
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"I don’t want to focus too much on it, but he double-touched, and the referee saw it," he said, according to The Toronto Star. It was unclear if those concerns were raised to officials.
The controversy even bled onto the women’s side on Saturday.
Canadian curler Rachel Homan had her stone removed after an official ruled that she had touched it again after releasing the handle. Homan protested, but per World Curling’s rules, there are no official replays and the official’s final call stands.
According to The Athletic, video replay of the incident did show Homan’s finger grazing the rock.
The new accusations came after World Curling released a statement addressing the claims first made by Sweden on Friday and Kennedy’s subsequent reaction, which was captured on the live broadcast.
WORLD CURLING FINDS NO VIOLATIONS AFTER CHEATING ALLEGATIONS ROCK CANADA-SWEDEN CURLING MATCH
"Game Umpires are situated at the end of each sheet and physically cannot see every delivery infraction. However, when they are made aware of delivery issues, game umpires are positioned to observe the delivery for three ends. During this period of observation in the Friday evening game, there were no violations recorded," the statement began.
The sports governing body also addressed two rule concerns including "double-touching" and touching the granite. According to the rules, players can retouch the handle multiple times, but "touching the handle after the hog line is not allowed and will result in the stone being removed from play." Additionally, the stone will be removed from play if the granite of the stone is touched at all during "forward motion."
As a result of the allegations, World Curling said that two officials will be positioned to observe all deliveries beginning with Saturday’s games.
Kennedy vehemently denied the accusations made by Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson at the time, saying, "Who’s doing it? I haven’t done it once, you can f--- off."
Canada was issued a verbal warning for Kennedy’s language, which he apologized for on Saturday – but the apologies ended there.
"I probably could’ve handled myself better in the moment," he told CBC. "I know I’m a role model for Canadian curlers, so if I apologize at all, it's to the young curlers around the country that would’ve expected more from me in that moment."
Kennedy went on to say he was defending himself and his team when their integrity came under criticism, and went on to further accuse Sweden of being in the wrong, saying he believed they "premeditated planning to try to catch us."
"They’ve come up with a plan to catch teams in the act," Kennedy said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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