The curling controversy at the Olympics continued to spiral as the world explodes over a moment that all started with the touch of a fingertip.
So what exactly happened?
Here’s an explainer on the shocking series of events that unfolded at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
How it all began
The saga began Friday, when Swedish curler Oskar Eriksson accused Canadian curler Marc Kennedy of breaking the rules by touching the rock again after initially releasing it down the sheet of ice. Kennedy’s expletive-laden outburst drew widespread attention, as did the matches that tend to fall off the radar outside the Olympics.
That was before video appearing to show a clear double-touch by Kennedy circulated on social media, taken by Swedish public broadcaster SVT. Still, he maintained his innocence. The Canadians won the match, 8-6.
Late Saturday, an umpire accused acclaimed Canadian skip Rachel Homan of the same infraction in a game against Switzerland. The umpire stopped play and the stone was removed from play. Homan looked shocked and denied the allegation.
Again, video spread on social media appearing to show her double-touch. The Canadians lost to the Swiss, 8-7.
Then, on Sunday, in the ninth end of Britain’s round-robin game against Germany, officials said Bobby Lammie of Scotland had touched a stone after releasing it.
What is the double-touch rule?
The rule bars those curling the stone from touching it with their fingers once they release it, but can be particularly difficult to police. There’s typically an honors system involved. There is no official video replay available to sort it out, leaving it up to the officials or the competitors themselves. It can lead to messily authentic moments like the one that went viral on Friday.
Several Olympic curlers said that double-touching did not necessarily reveal a nefarious desire to cheat, and that penalizing a quick and accidental graze of the granite could be over the top.
“If you get a hog line violation, it’s not cheating,” Homan said Monday.
Miskew added that it was rare to hear the accusation, at least in women’s curling, while Swiss curler Alina Paetz agreed with Homan that it is a minor infraction.
“If you do it it’s not allowed, but I think they blew it up a little bit, so it’s a bigger thing than it actually is,” Paetz said. “It’s the Olympics, there’s emotion in it. I don’t think it is actually that big of a deal.”
What happened next
After the uproar, World Curling clarified that double-tapping is not allowed, issuing a statement: “During forward motion, touching the granite of the stone is not allowed. This will result in the stone being removed from play.”
On Saturday, World Curling directed two umpires to move between the four matches during each round, monitoring play. That policy was in place when violations were called on Lammie and Homan.
It is exceedingly rare for stones to be removed from competition with that frequency.
By Sunday afternoon, players and coaches were fed up and World Curling changed its policy.
The move came after a lightning-fast meeting between national curling federations and World Curling on Saturday, where curlers expressed dissatisfaction with the increased surveillance. Athletes wanted less monitoring, not more.
The federation backpedaled on Sunday night, announcing that it would keep the two umpires who had been monitoring the games available at teams’ request — but that they would not be sent to monitor games by default.
“When the players started complaining, it puts them in a tough position because they want to do their jobs and listen to the players that think that there’s a problem out there,” said Emma Miskew, a Canadian curler. “I’m happy with how the discussion went and what the ruling came to.”
But the conversation surrounding the controversy grew so intense online that Nolan Thiessen, CEO of Curling Canada, told The Associated Press there have been “disgusting” emails directed toward family members of the Canadian team.
“That’s where it’s going to stop, right? We keep it on the ice,” Thiessen said. “If you want to hate our teams, that’s your right as a sports fan.”
What did Canadian players say about the controversy?
Asked about the footage, Kennedy said: “If somebody said to you, ‘Hey, do you double-touch all the time?’ I honestly, in that split second of a moment, I couldn’t even tell you if I do or not.”
He then suggested the whole thing might have been “premeditated planning to try to catch us.”
“They’ve come up with a plan to catch teams in the act,” Kennedy said.
Homan, meanwhile, postulated that she was being unfairly targeted because of the controversy on the men’s side.
“I don’t understand the call. I’ll never understand it. We’ve never done that,” she said. “It has nothing to do with us.”
Canada’s curlers are where they don’t want to be in the middle of a Winter Olympics: on the back foot, not just questioning their technique — “We’ll make some adjustments, release-wise, if we have to,” Kennedy said — but also scrambling to be in the mix for medals at the end of the week.
Kennedy had the worst shot success of Canada’s four players in its only game Saturday. Canada lost 9-5 to Switzerland, a team it was expected to beat.
All eyes are on both teams now. The Canadian men would not face Sweden again before the semifinals, should both teams make it, and that would be must-see TV whether you’re a curling fan or not.
Why this is such a big story
As fierce as the competition can be, curling has a quiet camaraderie even though there have been scandals (see: Broomgate, a sweeping-related headache that World Curling believes it solved last June). So it sticks out when there are allegations of cheating.
Canada is also the top nation in curling, easily its biggest market and where the biggest non-Olympic competitions tend to take place. The Canadians are taking it personally that their integrity is coming under attack in front of a global audience at the Olympics, which touts the values of respect and friendship.
The athletes playing for Canada and Sweden used to be close off the ice — huge rivals, sure, but admiring of each other’s skills. Now there’s clear animosity between the teams, which is intriguing for the casual viewer but a blow to the curling community.
from NBC Chicago https://ift.tt/5MgaydF
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