CORTINA D\u2019AMPEZZO, Italy \u2014 Controversy is swirling in curling at the Winter Olympics and it\u2019s all centering on whether the mighty Canadian team is cheating.<\/p>\n
Both men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams have now been accused of the same infraction: double-touching the curling stone after it is released.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a look at the whole controversy and why it has exploded:<\/p>\n
On Friday, Swedish curler Oskar Eriksson accused Canadian curler Marc Kennedy of breaking the rules by touching the rock again after initially releasing it down the sheet of ice. Kennedy blew up, launching an expletive-laden outburst.<\/p>\n
That was before video appearing to show a clear double-touch by Kennedy circulated on social media, taken by Swedish public broadcaster SVT. Still, he maintained his innocence. The Canadians won the match, 8-6.<\/p>\n
Late Saturday, an umpire accused acclaimed Canadian skip Rachel Homan of the same infraction in Canada\u2019s match against Switzerland. The umpire stopped play and the stone was removed from play. Homan looked shocked and denied the allegation.<\/p>\n
Again, video spread on social media appearing to show her double-touch. The Canadians lost to the Swiss, 8-7.<\/p>\n
After the uproar, World Curling clarified that double-tapping is not allowed, issuing a statement: \u201cDuring forward motion, touching the granite of the stone is not allowed. This will result in the stone being removed from play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the footage, Kennedy said: \u201cIf somebody said to you, \u2018Hey, do you double-touch all the time?\u2019 I honestly, in that split second of a moment, I couldn\u2019t even tell you if I do or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then suggested the whole thing might have been \u201cpremeditated planning to try to catch us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve come up with a plan to catch teams in the act,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n
Homan, meanwhile, postulated that she was being unfairly targeted because of the controversy on the men\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand the call. I\u2019ll never understand it. We\u2019ve never done that,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has nothing to do with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frankel and Douglas write for the Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORTINA D\u2019AMPEZZO, Italy \u2014 Controversy is swirling in curling at the Winter Olympics and it\u2019s all centering on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,215489,215490,3727,215491,934,4281,3,79600,13646,215492,129364,215488,215486,21,19,22,20,25,24,215487,58926],"class_list":["post-470038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-competitor","tag-consecutive-gold-medal","tag-event","tag-halfpipe","tag-live-update","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-news","tag-status","tag-switzerland","tag-torn-labrum","tag-total-number","tag-training-run","tag-u-s-athlete","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-winter-games","tag-winter-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}