Harry Thomas-Humphreys
Published February 21, 2026 6:00pm
Updated February 21, 2026 6:00pm
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The curling has been beset by allegations of cheating (Picture: Getty)
Great Britain’s curlers face Canada in the gold medal game at the Winter Olympics tonight amid the backdrop of an extraordinary cheating scandal that has engulfed the sport.
The controversy started on February 13 when Canada were accused of illegally touching their curling stones with their hands during the clash with Sweden.
Since last week’s remarkable events, other teams from across the men’s and women’s competitions have also been accused of breaking the rules, with paranoia sweeping across the ice sheets of the Cortina Olympic Stadium like wildfire.
And Bruce Mouat’s Team GB side, who are looking to win Great Britain’s first men’s curling Olympic gold since 1924, are one of the teams who have been pulled into the drama with cheating allegations of their own.
What’s the cheating scandal all about?
Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson accused Canada’s Marc Kennedy and other members of the team of ‘double-touching’ the curling stone after it had been released during last week’s game.
Video appeared to show Kennedy touching the stone inside the hog line (Picture: SVT)
The implication of this is that minute adjustments to the stone with a player’s hand can help with the direction and placement of the stone.
Kennedy denied the claims made by Eriksson, and the two of them engaged in an unedifying argument across the ice sheet.
Kennedy’s expletive- laden outburst, in which the 44-year-old told his Swedish counterpart to ‘f*** off’, saw the Canadian given a verbal warning over his behaviour by the sport’s governing body.
Kennedy and Eriksson's extraordinary mid-game row
Eriksson: ‘Apparently, it’s alright touching the rock after the hog line’
Kennedy: ‘Who?’
Eriksson: ‘It’s a couple’
Kennedy: ‘I haven’t done it once, you can f*** off’
Eriksson: ‘You haven’t done it once?’
Kennedy: ‘I haven’t done it once’
Eriksson: ‘Okay, I’ll show you a video after the game’
Kennedy: ‘How about you walking around my peel and dancing around the house? How about that? C’mon Oskar, just f*** off’
Eriksson: ‘Do you want me to show you the video?’
Kennedy: ‘I don’t give a s***. They were standing here and didn’t call it’
But despite denying the allegations, a video from Swedish broadcaster SVT emerged, which appeared to indeed show Kennedy double-touching the stone after it had been played.
Speaking after the match, Kennedy showed remorse for his choice of words but insisted he had no regrets about standing up for himself and his teammates.
‘I can’t think of once in my entire career where I’ve done something to gain a competitive advantage by cheating,’ Kennedy said.
"You can ** off" 💥Things got a bit spicy in the Canada vs Sweden curling match 😬🔥 pic.twitter.com/D1s6Jv0lNt
— TNT Sports (@tntsports) February 14, 2026
‘I take that very seriously. And it’s been a really long career. So, when you get called out, my instinct was to be a little bit of a bulldog.
‘I don’t regret defending myself or my teammates in that moment. I just probably regret the language I used.’
Kennedy also addressed the footage which appeared to contradict his original denial and went on to suggest the whole thing was a deliberate ploy to catch his team red-handed.
He added: ‘If somebody said to you, ‘hey, do you double-touch all the time?’ I honestly, in that split second of a moment, I couldn’t even tell you if I do or not.
‘They’ve come up with a plan to catch teams in the act.’
Eriksson confronted Kennedy during the game (Picture: Getty)
Who else has been accused of breaking the rules?
Just a day after the scandal blew up in the men’s competition, the Canadian women’s team became embroiled in the row during their defeat to Switzerland.
Skip Rachel Homan was alleged to have double-touched her first delivery of the match, which was subsequently removed from play.
A clearly irate Homan said: ‘I don’t understand the call. I’ll never understand it. We’ve never done that.
‘It has nothing to do with us. Ump (Umpire) shouldn’t be in our game. There’s no infractions on the women’s side at all. It was absurd.’
Homan added: ‘My hand did not move when I released it.
‘I have no idea what she saw. If she saw something, then look at the video. Go watch it a thousand times. You’re going to see nothing. It’s frustrating. It’s not even a thing.’
Team GB’s men became the latest nation to be drawn into the scandal when Bobby Lammie was judged to have brushed the stone with his finger during the win over Germany, which resulted in the stone being removed.
Lammie fell foul of the rules against Germany (Picture: Getty)
What are the rules around ‘double-touching?’
In a statement released after the controversy, World Curling clarified that touching the stone twice is not permitted.
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The statement said: ‘When delivering a stone, before the hog line players can retouch the handle as many times as they wish.
‘However, touching the handle after the hog line is not allowed and will result in the stone being removed from play as per Rule R.5 (e) that 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.”
‘During forward motion, touching the granite of the stone is not allowed. This will result in the stone being removed from play.’
Word Curling, who do not use in-game video replays to monitor the action, also stated that officials will be on hand during matches at the Olympics to monitor deliveries when requested to do so by a team.
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