Team USA’s Korey Dropkin says Olympic curling “double-touching” scandal “bigger than it needs to be”
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy — Team USA curler Korey Dropkin tells CBS News the so-called “double-touching” controversy that has gripped audiences amid the 2026 Winter Olympics is “bigger than it needs to be.” The American silver medalist defended his fellow curlers caught up in the media storm over the purported cheating.
Dropkin, who helped win a silver medal for the U.S. last week in mixed doubles curling, told CBS News on Tuesday that it was “unfortunate” the incident has fueled so much Olympic controversy, as he doesn’t believe there was any cheating.
The Olympic curling committee intervened after a heated row on the ice sparked by Sweden’s curling team accusing their Canadian opponents of cheating during a matchup on Friday.
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Veteran Canadian curler Marc Kennedy was offended by the accusation from Swedish rival Oskar Eriksson that he had engaged in “double touching” — making contact with the granite rock again after it’s released to slide down the ice — during Canada’s 8-6 win. Kennedy hurled expletives during a heated exchange as he denied breaking any rules.
Olympic officials added arbitrators to monitor subsequent releases, but the sport does not use video replays to review game decisions, and World Curling said after the incident that “decisions made during a game are final.”
“Throughout the last few seasons, truly there’s been a lot of athletes that have done this, and it hasn’t really been brought up,” Dropkin said. “There’s plenty of Olympians that have done the double-touch of flick of the granites.”
World Curling released a statement clarifying that touching the granite part of the stones is not allowed and would result in the stone being removed from play.
In the days after the incident, Canada’s Rachel Homan and Team GB’s Bobby Lammie both had stones removed from play for similar infractions.
Dropkin played down the impact of athletes grazing the granite on the stones behind the hog line, explaining that it could be part of a habit from before the practice was banned in the sport.
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“I think it’s been tough for some of the athletes” who have been in the game for years, Dropkin told CBS News. “Honestly, they’re athletes that I look up to, athletes that I’ve watched and admired for years.”
He acknowledged that there was “some foul language used, which probably wasn’t necessary,” but said Kennedy was “one of the greatest curlers of all time and plays by the rules. He’s been one of the guys that I’ve looked up to my entire life. Seeing him being seen as a cheating individual in the sport of curling, in my opinion, is just not right.”
Several other Olympic curlers have also come out to argue that double-touching doesn’t necessarily reveal any nefarious intent, and that penalizing a quick, accidental graze of the stone could be an overreach.
Swiss curler Alina Paetz described it as a minor infraction, acknowledging that “it’s not allowed,” but saying the uproar over last week’s incident seemed, “a bigger thing than it actually is.”
“It’s the Olympics, there’s emotion in it,” she told The Associated Press. “I don’t think it is actually that big of a deal.”
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