Marc Kennedy has claimed that “the spirit of curling is dead,” amidst accusations of rule-breaking at the Winter Olympics. The Canadian curler has been accused of double tapping his stones multiple times at Milano Cortina, with Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson igniting a heated exchange during Canada’s match against Sweden on Friday.
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Eriksson alleged that the 44-year-old had crossed the hog line by touching his stone after release, to which Kennedy vehemently denied. He replied: “I haven’t done it once. You can f*** off,” in an attempt to defend himself. Unfazed by the fiery response, Eriksson added: “I’ll show you a video after the game. I’ll show you a video where it’s two metres over the hog line.”
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Despite the controversy, Canada emerged victorious from the match with an 8-6 win. However, the allegations against Kennedy didn’t end there.
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On Saturday, Switzerland’s Pablo Lachat-Couchepin was seen speaking to team coach Glenn Howard, claiming he’d witnessed a double tap from Canada during the fifth-end break. Following Switzerland’s 9-5 victory, he said: “Well, everyone talked about it yesterday about the double, potential double touching, and I think, I assume I saw one when the referee was right next to me.
“We received an email, saying, ‘OK, we’re going to monitor it,’ and it’s nothing personally against Canada, because for me personally, it does nothing; they can do whatever they want, it doesn’t change the direction of the stone. But when you have a referee on the ice and the referee is here, and he is looking at it, then he should see it.
“This is what I was a bit annoyed about. I said to the chief umpire, if they send an email they [Canada] just have to follow the rules and follow what is said. It’s nothing personal against Marc Kennedy, he’s a fantastic player, a very fair-play guy and I really admire him.
