Winter Olympics curling descends into furious X-rated cheat row between Canada and Sweden

The Winter Olympics men’s curling clash has been drawn into a cheating row after Canada controversially beat Sweden on Friday.

Drama erupted at the ninth end of Canada’s match over the reigning champions amid accusations of players double-touching the stones.

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Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson was caught on camera alleging that Canadian third Marc Kennedy had cheated during their 8-6 defeat.

The latter was accused of touching the rock after releasing it at the hog line – the point where curlers must let go during delivery.

Section 5E of the curling rule book states: “A stone must be clearly released from the hand before it reaches the hog line at the delivery end.

“If the player fails to do so, the stone is immediately removed from play by the delivering team.”

Swedish captain Niklas Edin had sparked the cheating row by asking match officials: “If he does it again, is it a burned rock? If he does it again after the hog line?”

His teammate Oskar Eriksson then escalated the row by saying: “You’re not touching the handle, you’re touching the granite.

“There’s no way you can do that. You saw them touching the rock, right?”

Canada’s third Kennedy eventually snapped at the repeated claims and exploded into an X-rated tirade picked up by TV cameras.

“I haven’t done it once,” Kennedy responded.

“You can f*** off.”

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Eriksson responded: “You haven’t done it once? Ok, I’ll show you a video after the game.

“I’ll show you a video where it’s two metres over the hog line.”

Kennedy replied: “How about you walking around my peel and around the house? How about that? C’mon Oskar, just f*** off.”

When Eriksson doubled on asking to show the Canadians video evidence of his claims, his rival retorted: “I don’t give a f***.

“They were standing here and didn’t call it!!”

Kennedy ultimately ended up winning the ironically heated clash 8-6 due to a four-ender in the eighth end.

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Asked about the exchange afterwards, the 44-year-old said: “It’s good. It’s sport. It’s the Olympics. Both teams are trying to win.

“Oskar was accusing us of cheating. I didn’t like it. I’ve been curling professionally for 25 years.”

World Curling has introduced electronic handles on the stones at the Winter Olympics, which are fitted with a touch sensor which interacts with a magnetic strip embedded in the ice.

It means that the stones flash red if players are still making contact with the stone beyond the hog line.

“There’s hog line devices on there. I don’t know. And he’s still accusing us of cheating. I didn’t like it. So I told him where to stick it,” Kennedy added. “Because we’re the wrong team to do that to. So I don’t care.”

However, Eriksson refused to back down and claimed that Kennedy had bypassed the sensor by touching the stone – not the handle.

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“He asked who we thought was over the hog line, and I pointed out who we thought was touching the rock,” Eriksson added.

“It was obviously not a red light, but some players are touching the rock, according to us. And that’s not allowed … We told the officials. They came out, and they misread the rules, sadly.

“Because they thought double-touching any part of the rock is OK. And then they found out that was wrong.

“You can only touch the electronic part of the handle.”

“There were no hog line violations or retouches of the stone during the observation,” World Curling said in a statement.