Curling’s world governing body on Saturday said that Canada have received a verbal warning over bad language used after accusations of cheating from defending Olympic champions Sweden.
Sweden believed one of the Canadians was repeatedly double-touching, giving the stone another little prod with his finger to correct its course during Friday’s round robin match.
Tempers frayed with Canada’s Marc Kennedy and Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson trading insults.
Photo: Reuters
“I don’t like being accused of cheating after 25 years on tour and four Olympic Games,” Kennedy said. “So I told him [Eriksson] where to stick it. He might have been upset that he was losing.”
Canada went on to win 8-6.
World Curling said it had spoken with the Canadian officials “to issue a verbal warning regarding the language used.”
Photo: AP
“It’s an intense competition ... the biggest stage of the world,” Curling Canada CEO Nolan Thiessen said. “Do I wish Marc didn’t drop an F bomb? Wrong choice of words, but [it was in the] heat of the moment and we’ll carry on.
“Probably poor choice of words. I think heat of the moment I would allow for as well. Something was said in his ear, which kind of got him going,” he said. “I stand behind those guys. They always play with a lot of integrity, and they would never knowingly do anything that was offside from the rules.”
“But it shines a little extra light on the sport. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing,” he added.
World Curling said in a statement that video replay to re-umpire game decisions are not used and no violations had been recorded on Friday.
On Saturday, Canada’s women’s team was accused Saturday of the same violation.
In the first end of the women’s game against Switzerland, which the Swiss ultimately won 8-7, officials called a foul, saying that skip Rachel Homan had touched her stone again after releasing it.
In curling, that is known as “double-touching,” and it is against the rules.
Although the Canadian women were not as fired up in response to the allegation of double-touching, they surely looked incredulous after the call.
“Like, absolutely not,” said Homan, who is known as one of the best skips in the world. “Zero-percent chance.”
Homan’s teammate, Emma Miskew, could be heard briefly engaging with an official on the sidelines, asking why video could not be used to review the call.
The official said that the team needed to trust the umpire.
Before restarting the match, the Canadian women huddled with their coaches. Expletives could be heard from those in the circle, though it was not clear who uttered them.
After the game, Homan said she felt she had been unfairly scrutinized because of the controversy on the men’s side.
“I don’t understand the call. I’ll never understand it. We’ve never done that,” she said. “It has nothing to do with us.”
Additional reporting by AP
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