Curling Cheating Scandal at the Winter Olympics

After a heated exchange between Swedish curler, Oskar Eriksson and Canadian curler, Marc Kennedy at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium, people all around the world were invested, from fans on social media to Olympic officials. Let’s break down the events that took place, and what led to the verbal exchange during the Olympic curling match.

(Image credit to MSN)

On Friday the 13th of February, Canadian curler Marc Kennedy told Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson, “you can f*** off” after facing cheating allegations of touching the stone past the “hog line.” The “hog line” is the final point before a player must release the stone, any further and the stone is considered disqualified. 

According to the Swedish curling team, Kennedy was allegedly letting go of the stone’s handle, which contains electronic sensors, designed to detect violations, but keeping his finger on the granite as it cruised past the hog line.

“That’s not allowed. It’s pretty clearly stated,” Swedish curler Niklas Edin said, “You don’t touch 20kg of granite with your fingertips without feeling it, it’s completely impossible” Edin added, “We in the sport, know how very few grams of pressure can change the speed when it already has movement forward”

Even the most slight touch to the stone can change its speed and angle, and in a sport like curling, that makes all the difference.

Kennedy rejected the accusation completely, he said

“I’ve curled my whole life, never once with the intention of getting an advantage through cheating. So when (my integrity) gets attacked, I get my back up and get a little bit aggressive”

He accepted responsibility for the outburst and admitted that he “could’ve handled it better. No question.” However, he maintained his decision to not apologise to Eriksson.

Curling officials present at the game stated that they didn’t witness any violations, however this raised further concerns, if officials couldn’t see it and handle sensors couldn’t catch it, would it be possible to fully enforce the rule?

Many videos of the event circulated around the internet via social media allegedly showing Kennedy’s violation however World Curling said that video replays will not be counted as evidence to re-litigate calls made by officials. 

By the next day, things had escalated further up the chain of sports authority, reaching World Curling, who weighed in with a clear statement:

“During forward motion, touching the granite of the stone is not allowed. This will result in the stone being removed from play.”

The organisation rolled out a new policy for systematically observing players’ throws, however this policy was thrown out after a day.

The day after that, in a women’s match between Canada and Switzerland, Canadian curler, Rachel Homan’s first shot was pulled by officials for the same “double-touch” violation. Great Britain’s Bobby Lammie also had a rock disqualified in the men’s match against Germany.

By Sunday evening, World Curling has announced that umpires would observe throws by only “at the request of the competing teams”

The most chaotic three days of the Olympics went by in a blur, from a Friday swearing and fighting scandal, to Saturday’s global governing body issued statement to Sunday morning’s stone disqualification under new policy to Sunday evening’s pullback of the new policy.

This is just further evidence that the Olympic season is never, ever dull, and for all this drama to occur in the sport of curling was a shock for all spectators as it’s usually known as a typically calm and quiet sport.

Article written by Milla Sinfield