Olympic curling controversy keeps simmering as unofficial umpires raise concerns

“The whole system needs to be changed so that the judges dare to act,” he told the Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet. “For me, this is by far the biggest cheating we have had in curling — and somehow, it has become somewhat accepted. It’s absolutely crazy that nothing has been done about it."

Almost a year later, the topic blew up on the world stage at the Olympics during a tense match between Sweden and Canada. Edin's teammate, Oskar Eriksson, accused Canadian curler Marc Kennedy of the infraction, prompting an expletive-laden response from Kennedy in an interaction that quickly went viral and catapulted curling to must-watch status. A Swedish broadcaster added fuel to the fire by releasing footage showing what appeared to be a clear double-touch by Kennedy.

Umpires did nothing about the alleged infraction. They again did nothing on Wednesday when Swedish media showed Canadian Brad Jacobs appearing to break the same rule.

The controversy has quieted somewhat, but it has left World Curling in something of a bind, trying to balance what it calls the “ spirit of curling " — where players are supposed to call their own fouls and address their opponents' infractions in good faith — with an emerging need to clarify the rules and the penalties for breaking them as the sport grows more competitive.

“We live by this code, the spirit of curling, where you’re expected to have honorable conduct on ice, but also off ice,” said World Curling President, Beau Welling, in an interview. “I think we’re having some growing pains of balancing tradition with modern culture and society.”

The curling rulebook has some holes

“Double-touching" is when curlers touch the stone again after relinquishing its handle. If done forcefully, it can influence the curl and speed of the stone. But if done accidentally, it does next to nothing.

World Curling makes no clear distinction between the two types of double touches.

It has said that any touching of the stone after releasing amounts to an infraction, which should be penalized by the removal of the double-touched stone from play.

That penalty is not always meted out — a reality that first Edin, and now Swedish journalists and photographers, say they are trying to highlight in the absence of umpire scrutiny.

The so-called ‘pre-meditated’ plan

A day after the confrontation on the ice, Kennedy suggested the Swedish team had a “premeditated” plan to catch teams in the act. How else could the Swedish public broadcaster have been in perfect position to catch the exact moment of his infraction?

Perhaps he was not entirely wrong. Swedish media was primed, by interviews like the one Edin gave before the Olympics, to take specific interest in the issue, said Aftonbladet’s Olympics reporter, Amanda Zaza.

“They certainly made us aware of it ahead of time,” said Zaza, who is from Uppsala, Sweden.

The Swedish public broadcaster, SVT, denied working with the Swedish athletes:

“Any suggestion that SVT Sport and the Swedish curling team cooperated to obtain these images is a conspiracy theory and has no basis in reality," Johanna Bäckström Lerneby, SVT Sport’s head of news and editor in chief, wrote in an email to the AP.

‘We do not go back to re-umpire decisions’

World Curling reacted to the allegations last Friday by stationing umpires courtside; a day later, following negative feedback from players, it backed off, returning to the original policy where umpires are available courtside if players request them.

That — and the fact that there are no video replays in curling — has prompted the watchfulness of Swedish media.

On Monday, Swedish freelance photographer Pontus Orre stood in the stands, camera trained on the line where stones must be released. He caught what appeared to be a double-touch by Jacobs in a match against Czechia.

His photo was published in Aftonbladet and circulated on social media, encouraging a new wave of posts accusing the Canadians of cheating.

World Curling Officials took no public action. Spokesman Chris Hamilton said Czechia did not ask for official involvement during the match and "now that the game is over and both teams have confirmed the results, we do not go back to re-umpire decisions.”

Zaza, the Swedish journalist, defended the work of Sweden's curling journalists. She said their desire to monitor the line comes from the vagueness of the sport's rules and how they are upheld.

“As a journalist, you’re supposed to cover the stories that happen, and rules being broken is a part of that,” she said. “I think the main problem is the way the rules are set up.”

Edin looks back on the curling controversy he set off

In the end, Edin acknowledged that directly confronting Kennedy may not have been the right way to go about his quest to end double-touching— both for the sport and for his team, defending gold medalists who failed to make the Olympic semifinals.

“It turned into a real (problem), and we haven’t managed it,” said Edin. “If we could turn back time, I think it would have been a lot better to just keep (ignoring) what’s happening out there."

“A little lack of sleep, a little lack of focus on the right things, and it turned into a horrible week,” Edin said.

It is unclear whether World Curling will revisit rules on double-touching. For Edin, the next step will be sitting down with his team to discuss their future.

“We’ve got to listen in on everyone, and see if it’s still fun to curl," he said.

AP journalists Steve Douglas and Jimmy Golen contributed to this report.

——- AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics