Canada’s curlers have responded to Sweden’s cheating allegations with accusations of their own towards the Scandinavian team.
On Friday (February 13), Canada’s Marc Kennedy and Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson became embroiled in a heated exchange near the end of the North American nation’s 8–6 victory.
The Swedish team accused two-time Olympic medallist Kennedy of double-touching the stone; however, the sensors installed on the top of the stone remained green and would have turned red if this were the case.
However, TV pictures appeared to show that the 44-year-old had double-touched the stone on several occasions, despite it not being picked up by the sensor.
Advert
Both teams asked officials to monitor the proceedings. According to World Curling’s rules, a player must release their grip on the handle before the hog line – a thick green line through the centre of the ice.
The sport’s governing body later released a statement explaining that the Canadian team had been issued a verbal warning due to the use of inappropriate language towards their opponents.
The statement read: “Following the situations arising from the Sweden versus Canada game in men’s session four on Friday (13 February) evening, several issues require clarification.
"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.”
On Saturday (February 14), Kennedy was accused of double-touching again, this time by Swiss lead Pablo Lachat-Couchepin, who explained how he “saw” his opponent do it before adding that he was “a bit annoyed”.
“I really believe it does nothing – it doesn't change the stone – but when you have a referee looking at it, they should see it,” the Swiss player told BBC Sport.
Switzerland beat Canada 9–5 despite Kennedy’s alleged double-touching technique.
Now, Kennedy has fired back and claimed that someone on the Sweden team filmed his deliveries as a way of influencing the event.
“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,” he told reporters. “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,” Kennedy added. “So I think this was — I don’t know what the word is for that — but like a premeditated plan to try to catch us.”
The Swedish team has denied the allegations and claimed the video was filmed by a Swedish public broadcaster.
According to Olympic rules, only Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) are permitted to film events.
Canada’s coach, Paul Webster, also waded in and said that Sweden “had video of the Italian team” as well.
“So they’ve got people up there videoing, and that whole thing was premeditated and planned,” he said. “They were there, ready at the hog line, video recording.”
Luke Davies