World Curling Confirm Major Change For Winter Olympics After 'Cheating' Scandal
The updated protocol will take effect from Sunday's evening session.
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Topics: Olympics
Jack Kenmare
Topics: Olympics
World Curling has confirmed that an updated protocol will take effect from Sunday's evening session in Cortina following a meeting with representatives of teams competing at the Winter Games.
It has been a controversial week at the Cortina Olympic Stadium in Cortina d'Ampezzo.
For those who have been living under a rock, Sweden's men's team accused Canadian curlers of double-touching stones during their round-robin match on Friday.
In fact, after Sweden's Oskar Eriksson accused Canadian third Marc Kennedy of double-touching the stone, the Team Canada athlete denied the accusation and told his opponent to "f**k off" in a heated row.
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A day later and the Canadian team were once again accused of cheating during their defeat to Switzerland, while other games have also seen infractions due to double-touching.
After the incident on Friday, World Curling initially said the remainder of the competition in Cortina would designate two officials to move between the four curling matches during each round.
However, they noted it was “not possible” to have umpires stationed at each hog line, the point where curlers must let go during delivery.
On Sunday, the organisation provided a further update on how the umpiring will work going forward, with the following updated protocol taking effect from Sunday's session onwards.
A statement from World Curling read: "Following a meeting with representatives of the competing National Olympic Committees, an update in the stone monitoring protocol has been confirmed, beginning with the evening session on Sunday 15 February.
"This change in protocol will see the two umpires who had previously been actively monitoring athlete deliveries remain available in the field of play, but will now only monitor athlete deliveries at the request of the competing teams."
It added: "The umpires, when requested, will monitor deliveries for a minimum of three ends."
As mentioned above, two umpires will no longer be monitoring but instead will be available if teams make a request.
Earlier this week, World Curling clarified the rule regarding double-touching.
"Following the situations arising from the Sweden versus Canada game in men’s session four on Friday (13 February) evening, several issues require clarification," the statement read.
"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. When delivering a stone, before the hog line players can retouch the handle as many times as they wish.
"However, touching the handle after the hog line is not allowed and will result in the stone being removed from play as per Rule R.5 (e) that states: 'A stone must be clearly released from the hand before it reaches the hog line at the delivery end. If the player fails to do so, the stone is immediately removed from play by the delivering team.'
"During forward motion, touching the granite of the stone is not allowed. This will result in the stone being removed from play.
"As per rule R.5 (d) “The curling stone must be delivered using the handle of the stone.” Violation of this rule, will result in the stone being removed from play."