Winter Olympics Day 8: Jakara Anthony wins gold, Americans take silver and bronze in women’s dual moguls

At the halfway stage of the Winter Olympics, it is safe to say that the competition is ever increasingly heating up.

And nowhere was this more obvious than at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium during yesterday’s men’s clash between Canada and Sweden.

Canada took the win in an 8-6 thriller, but the drama wasn’t just on the ice.

Sweden had accused the Canadian team of touching the stone after it was originally released – a taboo in the sport which the Canadians disputed.

This led to a fiery contest and players from both teams chirping throughout with choice words from Canada’s Marc Kennedy being leveled at the Swedes.

“We want a game that is as sportsmanlike, honest and clean as possible, so we call it out as soon as I see that the Canadian No. 2 is, in my eyes, there poking the stone,” Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson said after the match.

“He drops the handle, so it gets a green light and that’s OK, but you can’t then poke it in any other part than the electronic handle and, according to us, they did that.”

According to the World Curling rulebook, “a double touch by the person delivering the stone, prior to the hog line at the delivering end, is not considered a violation,” but the rulebook also states that the stone “must be delivered using the handle of the stone.”

The accusation from Eriksson was something that Kennedy strongly refuted.

“I don’t like being accused of cheating after 25 years on tour and four Olympic Games,” Kennedy said.

The Canadian then defended his swearing at Eriksson.

“He’s still accusing us of cheating, and I didn’t like it. So I told him where to stick it because we’re the wrong team to do that to. So I don’t care. He might have been upset that he was losing.”