Canada warned over ‘F-bomb’ Olympics curling exchange with Sweden, amid cheating claims
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Canada's Ben Hebert, Marc Kennedy and Brett Gallant in action during their Feb 13 match against Sweden.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- Sweden accused Canada of cheating in a curling match, leading to a heated verbal exchange between players Marc Kennedy and Oskar Eriksson.
- World Curling issued Canada a verbal warning for bad language used during the dispute, but confirmed no cheating violations were recorded.
- Curling Canada defended its team, attributing the "wrong choice of words" to the "heat of the moment" on the world stage.
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CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy - Curling’s world governing body said on Feb 14 that Canada have received a verbal warning over bad language used after accusations of cheating from defending Olympic champions Sweden.
Sweden believed one of the Canadians was repeatedly double-touching, giving the stone another little prod with his finger to correct its course during the Feb 13 round robin match.
Tempers frayed with Canada’s Marc Kennedy and Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson trading insults.
“I don’t like being accused of cheating after 25 years on tour and four Olympic Games,” said Kennedy.
“So I told him (Eriksson) where to stick it. He might have been upset that he was losing...”
Canada went on to win 8-6.
On Feb 14, World Curling said it had spoken with the Canadian officials “to issue a verbal warning regarding the language used”.
“It’s an intense competition... the biggest stage of the world,” Curling Canada chief executive officer Nolan Thiessen said.
“Do I wish Marc didn’t drop an F bomb? Wrong choice of words, but (it was in the) heat of the moment and we’ll carry on.
“Probably poor choice of words. I think heat of the moment I would allow for as well. Something was said in his ear, which kind of got him going.
“I stand behind those guys. They always play with a lot of integrity, and they would never knowingly do anything that was offside from the rules.”
“But it shines a little extra light on the sport. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing.”
World Curling said in a statement that video replay to re-umpire game decisions are not used and no violations had been recorded on Feb 13. AFP
