Sawt Falasteen - Curling's air of gentility melts amid cheating row

Curling returned to the Olympic programme at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics and has been described as "bowling on ice".

But at the 2026 Winter Olympics, the sport's cuddly image has been shattered.

It started when Sweden's Oskar Eriksson accused his Canadian opponent Marc Kennedy of cheating by touching the stone twice, adding "it was not the first time he had done so", in their team contest.

Kennedy, a gold medallist in 2010 and who won bronze four years ago, responded in the heat of the moment: "I have touched it just once, go fxxx yourself!"

Nevertheless the sport's authorities, World Curling Federation (WCF), reacted by introducing two referees to oversee the four 'sheets' -- a huge move in a sport that has prided itself on the players refereeing themselves.

However, after protests by the teams they rowed back on that call.

A few days after the altercation Kennedy, 44, used less colourful language but made no bones about what impact such an accusation of cheating had had on a sport which first saw the light of day in Scotland in the 16th century.

"For a long time we've been playing catch-up with some of the rules," he said.

"The whole spirit of curling is dead, unfortunately. We've played the game at a high level long enough where we weren't looking for infractions.

"We just trust that the people around us aren't trying to cheat.

"This whole trying to catch people in the act of an infraction and (doing) anything to win a medal, it sucks."

- 'Little extra light' -

Kennedy believes, however, that the sport's rules will have to evolve.

"The powers that be probably will have to take a real good look at this and really solidify the rules going forward," he said.

Kennedy, who took up curling aged just six, claimed the likely reason for the rows has "come from the quest for medals".

However, back home in Canada Kennedy and his teammates have been the target of some withering criticism, as highlighted in an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail.

"Stop acting like our curling reputation matters more than our national one. Be the bigger man and woman, even if you don't think you did anything wrong," it said.

Sweden's coach Fredrik Lindberg said the matter had already been spoken about before but it had attracted headlines because of the reactions and the fact it was on the biggest stage of all, the Olympics.

"We made the same comment last year at (world championships) and it's not a new thing to us," he said.

"So we keep notifying them, and then World Curling needs to do what they can.

"But once the umpires are out there, they're the ones that deal with it."

However, Curling Canada CEO Nolan Thiessen saw the upside of the row.

"At the end of the day, it shines a little extra light on the sport. Sometimes that's not a bad thing," he said.

W.AbuLaban--SF-PST