Olympic curling scandal could forever alter the

MILAN — Cheating has been half of the Olympics since the historic video games, when violators have been punished with fines, public flogging or lifetime bans.

The Milan-Cortina Games have hardly been an exception, although there have been no stories of public flogging.

These Olympics began with controversy when a report in the German newspaper Bild alleged ski jumpers have been injecting hyaluronic acid into their penises in an effort to fly additional. Then got here a different type of dishonest when medal-winning Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid confessed to infidelity in a TV interview.

Both scandals drew consideration even if most people already knew that all just isn’t honest in love and soar.

But those paled in comparability to the outcry that erupted when some curlers — Canadian curlers — have been accused of bending the guidelines. That was held up as a great breach of etiquette, instigating calls for extra officers and even video reviews in a sport where opponents have historically called their own fouls.

“Curling has historically operated on a culture of trust and self-regulation,” said Heather Mair, chair of recreation and leisure research at the University of Waterloo and an professional on the social elements of curling. “At most levels, players call their own infractions. They compete against people they know well, often in relatively small circuits, and they see each other repeatedly over the course of a season.

“That relational fabric has long been part of the sport’s informal governance.”

But when the sport returned to Olympic competitors in 1998 after a 74-year break, that started to change. Suddenly, national pleasure, medals and funding have been at stake. And after the Milan-Cortina Games ends, a well-funded skilled league, the Rock League, will launch with six groups, additional accelerating the sport’s evolution from interest to occupation.

“The whole context of the Olympics is the story here,” Mair said.

“What we’re seeing in curling is this kind of dramatic, heart-wrenching conversation within the sport about cheating and honesty and all this kind of stuff. Did that happen before in this case with the ski jumping? Was there this heart-wrenching conversation about cheating?”

To review, the Canadian males’s and ladies’s groups have been accused of double touching the stone during release. The guidelines state a participant could retouch the deal with as many instances as they need when delivering a stone — as long as they do so before the hog line, the thick stripe that marks the end of the release zone. Touching the deal with after the hog line just isn’t allowed.

So when did Canada’s Marc Kennedy and Rachel Homan last contact their stones?

During Canada’s win over Sweden on Friday, the Swedes taped Kennedy’s release and the video confirmed him touching the stone with his index finger after releasing the deal with. Kennedy, who was mic-d up, responded to Sweden’s allegations by swearing, which is also a break from curling tradition.

A day later, World Curling, the governing physique for the sport, deployed extra officers to monitor the hog line, and Homan had a stone disqualified in Canada’s loss to Switzerland when it was decided she touched it twice.

“This feels like a new era of surveillance for the sport,” Mair said. “I just don’t know how else we manage it.”

Modern stones have hog-line sensors constructed into the handles, so they reliably detect late release of the deal with. But they don’t detect a transient contact on the granite itself. And without an umpire watching intently — or without video evidence — that type of infraction could be tough to spot.

“Despicable,” Canadian males’s skip Brad Jacobs said of the extra scrutiny. “As Canadian curlers, we were targeted. And to go out and pull her rock like that, I think it was a tragedy.”

Canada’s Rachel Homan competes against China at the Milan-Cortina Games on Monday.

(Fatima Shbair / Associated Press)

Canadian coach Paul Jacobs took a more nuanced method, conceding there’s a downside but disagreeing with the answer.

“If you listen to what Sweden said, and I think they’re right, this has been a problem that they’ve tried to identify to our international federation. And it wasn’t acted on,” Jacobs said. “Now we’re trying to quickly fix things at an Olympics, and I think it’s the wrong thing to do.

“A double-touch stone, or whatever it is, none of these officials have ever gone through any of their courses. We have untrained people doing things they’ve never done before. And we’re not at some bonspiel in Saskatchewan just trying things out. We’re at the Olympics.”

For Mair, the lament is that the very public controversy enjoying out on that Olympic stage will pressure adjustments at the top degree of the sport that will trickle down to the grassroots. And what will likely be misplaced when that occurs will alter curling forever.

“Once they start messing around with this trust, I think we’re on a pretty sad path,” Mair said. “This feels so ugly. But the value of these Olympic medals are such that, I guess this stuff can be sacrificed.”