By Aadi Nair
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Rachel Homan’s Canadian women’s curling team say they have been dragged into a cheating controversy that is nothing to do with them, as a dispute over double touching stones continues to overshadow the competition at the Winter Olympics.
The controversy erupted when Sweden’s men’s team accused Canadian curlers of cheating by double touching their stones on Friday.
In response, World Curling initially said the remainder of the competition would have two officials monitoring the hog line, the point where curlers must let go of the stone during delivery.
Homan then had a stone removed from play for double touching during a loss to Switzerland, a decision she called “insane”.
“I think the word cheating came out of nowhere. It has nothing to do with cheating. There’s no chance that Canadians would ever intentionally cheat,” Homan said on Monday.
“We don’t do that. We’re playing out there. We’re fierce. You know, things happen. People burn rocks. People go over the hog line – that’s just part of the sport.
“There’s judges and reviews to make sure everything stays within how it’s supposed to be played,” she said, adding: “We don’t take lightly to feeling like someone thinks we’re cheating out there.”
‘HEATED MOMENT’
The drama was amplified partly due to a heated exchange between the Canada’s Marc Kennedy and Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson towards the end of their game.
After Eriksson told Kennedy he would show him a video replay of him touching a stone repeatedly, the Canadian twice responded with an expletive picked up on the broadcast.
“It obviously was like a heated moment between two players that blew it up,” the Canadian women’s team’s second Emma Miskew said.
“We had nothing to do with that. So we felt like we were brought into a situation that we had no part in.
On Saturday, World Curling rowed back on its decision to ramp up officiating after a meeting with representatives of the participating nations, saying officials would actively monitor for violations only at the request of teams.
Miskew said: “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…
“But I’m happy with how the discussion went and what the ruling came to.”
(Reporting by Aadi Nair; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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