Associated PressMultiple AuthorsFeb 14, 2026, 12:48 PM ET
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — The Canadian curler at the center of a spiraling controversy at the Winter Olympics insisted Saturday that he was not a cheat and postulated that his team might be the target of a “premeditated” attack by Sweden, one of its biggest rivals for the gold medal.
However, Kennedy, 44, said he did not — and has never — deliberately taken to the ice “with the intention of getting an advantage through cheating.”
“And if somebody said to you, ‘Hey, do you double-touch all the time?’ I honestly, in that split second of a moment, I couldn’t even tell you if I do or not,” he said.
He added his own theory, suggesting the whole thing might have been “premeditated planning to try to catch us.”
The saga has rocked the usually sedate world of curling and involves two teams that play each other regularly outside the Olympics and have some of the best players in the game.
In another twist Saturday, the Canadian women’s team was accused by match officials of the same double-touch violation, this time by veteran skip Rachel Homan in the first end against Switzerland. The Canadian curlers looked incredulous and angry.
Kennedy received a verbal warning from governing body World Curling a day after the feisty back-and-forth with the Swedish team. He has not been formally charged with cheating by World Curling, which does not use video to review game play.
The organization opted to deploy two officials to monitor how players released their stones during Saturday’s afternoon session in the men’s competition. In that session, Canada lost 9-5 to Switzerland and Sweden beat China 6-4.
“We want to play a fair-and-square game, like you follow the rules,” Eriksson said. “And if we see something that’s not following the rules, we tell the opponents or the official. This time we did both.”
During its game against Canada, the Swiss men’s team alerted umpires midmatch to their suspicion that a member of the Canadian team was again double-tapping, Swiss coach Glenn Howard said.
“My whole career, you’d be like, ‘Ah, that’s OK,’ if there was a minor infraction,” said Howard, who said he didn’t know what to make of this latest flare-up.
The online footage that appears to show Kennedy double-tapping the stone prompted some curling fans to question how the video was taken and point out that cameras are not usually stationed at the hog line.
Marc Kennedy acknowledged he “probably could have handled it better” after launching an expletive-laden outburst toward Swedish curler Oskar Eriksson, who accused him of breaking rules by “double-touching” — essentially, touching the rock again after initially releasing it down the sheet of ice — during Canada’s 8-6 win in round-robin play late Friday.
“They’ve come up with a plan to catch teams in the act,” Kennedy said.
“Zero percent chance,” Homan said before the match continued.
Howard is Canadian, and a well-known and highly acclaimed curler himself.