CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — First there were expletives. Then came the accusations. Then came the media glare and hilarious memes.
Global interest in curling has surged over the past week as a cheating controversy erupted at the Winter Olympics, shaking up a staid 500-year-old sport known for etiquette, manners and friendliness.
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After several days of intense curling, including plenty of verbal sparring and brief rule changes, things have calmed down and players and officials alike appear ready to move on with the medal game just around the corner.
“This is the Olympics,” said Canadian curler Ben Herbert, whose team has been at the center of the controversy. “It will be over in two weeks and in four years everyone will be covering curling again.”
However, the high-profile saga highlights some of the issues in a sport hungry for exposure – and one that is slowly becoming more professional – but perhaps not ready for all the trappings that come with it.
Sweden yelled at Canada’s Marc Kennedy for an illegal double-touch foul while throwing a block on the ice, raising questions about whether the so-called “spirit of curling” is broken.
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After all, curling has long been a close-knit sport, with players often calling fouls themselves, shaking hands at the end of games and sharing a beer or two afterward.
The Swedish and Canadian players have always been rivals, but they are also friendly. Couldn’t they just handle this behind closed doors without causing any harm?
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It seems the top levels of the sport are not ready for this.
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Unlike sports such as football, cricket and the NFL, there are no video replays in curling, so officials cannot re-judge decisions such as the infraction Kennedy apparently committed when he poked a granite boulder with his outstretched finger after releasing it.
Curling executives responded by first sending umpires to the free throw line to check for future fouls, but then reverted to the traditional practice of players self-policing.
“We’re trying to spread our culture, and our culture is a culture based on integrity, honor and friendship,” World Curling Association President Beau Waring said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “We are committed to that code – the spirit of curling – and we expect you to conduct yourself honorably on and off the ice.
“Obviously, there’s been some testing of that this week. But, fundamentally, this is who we are,” he said. “I really don’t think that’s going to change.”
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Some may think this puts curling’s problems to rest once and for all.
However, this is the Olympics – it’s serious business, played out in front of curling’s biggest audience.
“Curling needs to be professionalized a little bit,” Curling Canada CEO Nolan Thiessen told The Associated Press at the Cortina Curling Centre. “As a sport, if we want to get to where we want to be, we’re going to have to take some steps, some of which may be compromised. You know, letting officials make subjective decisions… there’s a lot of sports where that’s the case. We probably need to get there rather than ‘I think you did that’ and ‘Well, I don’t think I did that’.
“We’re trying,” he added, “to find the right balance as a sport.”
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And just like that, the show went on.
The Olympics will soon be without the defending champion Swedish men’s team, which was officially eliminated from the semifinals on Tuesday after losing for the sixth time in seven games in the round-robin tournament.
“We probably should have done something different and handled it differently,” Sweden captain Niklas Edin said of what he described as a “terrible week.”
Many curling traditionalists would no doubt agree.
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AP Sports Writer Jimmy Goren and AP Writer Julia Frankel contributed to this story.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
