Olympics-Curling-Canada women's skip Homan slams official's decision to pull stone

By Aadi Nair

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Canada women's team skip Rachel Homan said it was "insane" that one of her stones was removed from play after she was charged with double touching during a defeat by Switzerland at the Winter Olympics on Saturday.

The incident has further stoked the fires at the Olympic curling competition, coming a day after Sweden's men's team accused Canadian curlers of cheating by double touching stones in a heated clash.

In response to Sweden's claims, World Curling said it would have officials standing by the hog line monitoring for violations during the rest of the Olympics.

In her first delivery of the game against Switzerland, Homan was judged to have touched the stone after release by an official on the sidelines.

She reacted with disbelief, saying "absolutely not", but the stone was removed from play. Canada went on to suffer an 8-7 defeat in an extra end.

"I don't understand the call. I'll never understand it. We've never done that," an irate Homan said after the defeat.

"It has nothing to do with us. Ump (Umpire) shouldn't be in our game. There's no infractions on the women's side at all. It was absurd.

"If there is something, you call it out and the ump comes out, watches so it doesn't happen again. It's never been called out in the women's game. It's just insane."

Homan added that the umpire could not have seen the violation clearly from the sidelines and should have checked video footage of it.

"My hand did not move when I released it," she added.

"I have no idea what she saw. If she saw something, then look at the video. Go watch it a thousand times. You're going to see nothing. It's frustrating. It's not even a thing."

Switzerland's Silvana Tirinzoni said she did not witness the incident.

"I don't know if she did do it. But it's a decision that the umpire took and we had no choice than to remove that rock. It was an order from the umpire," she added.

"It's a rule that always existed as far as I know. But it has been a big discussion yesterday. They took a closer look today. Apparently, they saw her touching the granite. I don't know if that's true or not.

"But then they decided to remove the rock. I cannot say anything. I did not see it."

Canada and Switzerland are among the favourites to win gold, with the teams having met in the final of the last two world championships, which were both won by Homan's rink.

The Swiss are joint-second in the round-robin standings in the Milano Cortina Games with three wins from four games, while Canada are joint-eighth after one win.