Swedish journalist confronts Canada curling star in tense mixed zone interview

A Swedish journalist confronted Canada curling star Marc Kennedy amid cheating allegations at the Winter Olympics.

Canada beat Sweden 8-6 in their men's round robin fixture in Cortina last Saturday.

But the match at the Winter Olympics was marred by allegations of cheating after Sweden accused Canada of double-touching before they had released one of their stones.

Tensions boiled over as Kennedy responded to the accusations by telling Sweden's Oskar Eriksson to 'f**k off' in an explosive moment.

The unsavoury incident prompted World Curling to take action as they released a statement confirming a major rule change.

Kennedy and his Canadian teammates returned to action against Czechia, beating their European counterparts 8-2.

Speaking after his team's victory, he said: "I think the whole spirit of curling is dead, unfortunately.

"This whole (idea of) trying to catch people in the act of an infraction and (doing) anything to win a medal, it sucks, it’s unfortunate. But you know, it is what it is, the sport is evolving."

A Swedish reporter was present in the mixed zone and confronted Kennedy over the scandal that has rocked the sport.

He was shown an image that appeared to show him double-touching in Canada's win against Czechia, with Swedish outlet Sportbladet once again accusing the North American nation of cheating.

Kennedy, however, refuted suggestions he cheated intentionally as he almost walked away from the interview.

"I have 50 videos of people who... I'll gonna go now," he said. "But it's okay, we've talked about this so much already. It's a shame it came up during the Olympics. We've all had to deal with it now.

"But all the teams have the right to call a referee now, so if the Czech Republic were not happy with something, they were more than welcome to call a referee and we could do the same. That's how it should work."

Kennedy added: "I can guarantee that there is not a single double touch out there that is done intentionally to cheat. That's all I can say."