Canada’s curling team has fired back at Sweden after the Swedes accused the Canadians of cheating at the Winter Olympics.
After Sweden accused Canada of double-touching stones on Friday, igniting a global controversy, Canadian curler Marc Kennedy leveled allegations against the Swedes of improperly filming his delivery.
“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,” Kennedy told reporters, per the National Post.
“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 an act.
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“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.”
Curling Canada CEO Nolan Thiessen told reporters he thinks video was shot outside of the strict rules for Olympic filming.
“I was surprised that there was a live video on the hog line outside of OBS rules,” Thiessen said. “That seems odd to me.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Sweden’s curling team for comment.
According to the National Post, Team Sweden denied any inappropriate filming, claiming the video came from the Swedish public broadcaster.
Sweden’s Niklas Edin said “absolutely not” when asked about the allegations from Team Canada.
“We’ve been saying this for maybe seven, eight years or something,” he said of the hog line issue. “The media crew decided to place the camera on the hog line to see what was happening, to explain it to the people watching.
“It was Swedish media, the people covering the game that did that, we were told, at least. I have no idea, but that’s what we were told afterwards.”
The Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) released a statement saying it did not produce the video that appears to show Canada curlers double-touching stones after releasing them at the hog line that has circulated across social media.
The OBS added, “However, to clarify the general framework, OBS as well as any properly accredited media rights holder that has acquired broadcast rights from the International Olympic Committee is permitted to film within Olympic venues.”
The feud came to a boiling point during Friday’s match when Kennedy and Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson got into it after Eriksson accused Kennedy of double-touching.
Kennedy shouted at Eriksson, “I haven’t done it once. You can f— off.”
Eriksson replied, “I’ll show you a video after the game. I’ll show you a video where it’s two meters over the hog line.”
Both sides appealed to the officials, but no results were changed.
Swiss curlers have made similar comments about Canada. Swiss curler Pablo Lachat-Couchepin was captured on a broadcast talking to his coach during a fifth-end break in which he mentioned he witnessed double-touching.
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“I don’t want to focus too much on it, but he double-touched, and the referee saw it,” he said, according to The Toronto Star. It was unclear if those concerns were raised to officials.
The controversy even bled onto the women’s side on Saturday.
Canadian curler Rachel Homan had her stone removed after an official ruled she had touched it again after releasing the handle. Homan protested, but, according to World Curling’s rules, there are no official replays, and the official’s final call stands.
According to The Athletic, video replay of the incident did show Homan’s finger grazing the rock.
World Curling has released a statement addressing the claims first made by Sweden on Friday and Kennedy’s subsequent reaction.
“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,” the statement said.
The sports governing body also addressed two rule concerns, including “double-touching” and touching the granite. According to the rules, players can retouch the handle multiple times, but “touching the handle after the hog line is not allowed and will result in the stone being removed from play.”
Additionally, the stone will be removed from play if the granite of the stone is touched at all during “forward motion.”
As a result of the allegations, World Curling has assigned two officials positioned to observe all deliveries for future matches starting with Saturday’s.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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