A Canadian curler has slammed Sweden after they levelled accusations of cheating against Canada's Marc Kennedy at the 2026 Winter Olympics - and has accused them of being involved in a separate incident.
Kennedy, who plays a third in Canada's men's team, was captured on video replay tapping the stone with his index finger after releasing the handle during a round-robin match against Sweden on Friday.
Opposing third Oskar Eriksson confronted the team and accused Kennedy of cheating, stating he would show video evidence after the match. Switzerland would later accuse Kennedy of a similar offence.
World Curling have been forced to issue a rule clarification, and have installed extra officials at every match during the Winter Olympics to monitor any breaches.
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They added that game umpires had observed the delivery for three ends during Friday's matches, but did not observe any rule violations during that period.
Kennedy told reporters that he believes Sweden had a 'premeditated plan to try to catch us', stating: "They have come up with a plan here at the Olympics, as far as I know, to catch teams in the act at the hog line.
"This was planned, right from the word go yesterday. From the words that were being said by their coaches and the way they were running to the officials, it was kind of evident that something was going on and they were trying to catch us in the act.
"I know we're not the only team that they've done that to."
Canada curler Michael Fournier, who has played at a number of national tournaments in his own country, has called Sweden third Eriksson 'petty' in a column for The Curling News.
Fournier, 54, went on to describe Sweden's act as 'an affront to what is supposed to be a classy sport played by gentlemen' - before claiming that Eriksson labelled him as a cheat during a match around 10 years ago.
"For Swedish third Oskar Eriksson to call this out while losing at the Olympics is, to me, a horrible violation of the spirit of the game," Fournier wrote.
"He has made the game worse, while it was on its biggest stage. Shame on you."
He continued: "I am generally not the biggest fan of Canada's Team Jacobs [Brad Jacobs, captain] in normal times. I cringed when Jacobs poked fun at the US team for 'premature celebration' in their game earlier this round.
"But I have to side with them on this one. I also would have reacted the same way if someone accused me of cheating.
"Oskar Eriksson also accused me of cheating.
"We were playing Edin in a cashspiel about 10 years ago during the Broomgate [a technology doping controversy relating to brush heads in around 2015] era. And coincidentally, we were beating the c**p out of them.
"He [Eriksson] straight up called me a liar and a cheat during the game, to my face, as if I could not possibly be beating him unless I was cheating. And I reacted in much the same way Marc did.
"Thankfully there were no microphones or cameras around that game."
Ryan Smart