Olympics-Curling-Decision to penalise Canada's women was 'despicable', men's skip Jacobs says

By Aadi Nair

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Canadian men's skip Brad Jacobs launched a blistering attack on curling officials on Sunday, calling it "despicable" that women's team counterpart Rachel Homan had a stone removed for double touching during a game at the Winter Olympics.

The curling competition at the Games has been mired in controversy after Sweden's men's team accused Canadian curlers of double touching stones on Friday, triggering a heated clash between players and a subsequent media frenzy.

In response, World Curling initially said the remainder of competition would have two officials monitoring the hog line, the point where curlers must let go during delivery.

Following the introduction of officials on Saturday, Canada's Homan had a stone removed from play, after she was judged to have touched it twice during delivery.

Jacobs said he and the rest of the men's team were in attendance at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium during the women's team's defeat by Switzerland.

"What happened with her with the rock was despicable. That's the word that comes to mind. When we all sat up there and watched that happen, I thought it was despicable," he added, speaking after a 6-3 win over China in a men's round-robin session.

"I felt immediately as Canadian curlers we were targeted and to go out and pull her rock like that, I think was it was a tragedy.

"All of a sudden mid-week when you see umpires come out that are not trained to do what they're doing and are pulling rocks out of games as if they're burnt stones, that's a disaster.

"That's how I feel about that and I think the vast majority of the field on the men's and women's side feels the exact same way."

World Curling reversed its decision to ramp up officiating on Sunday but not before British curler Bobby Lammie also had a rock removed from play during the morning session.

Asked about the second incident, Jacobs said: "At that point it made me feel like we weren't being targeted which is good.

"If he threw that rock that way against us, personally I would never ever want that rock to be removed. He did nothing wrong in my opinion."

'UNTRAINED PEOPLE'

Canadian coach Paul Webster questioned World Curling's decision to set officials at the hog line.

"I just think again we have untrained people doing things that they've never done before and we're not at some bonspiel in Saskatchewan just trying things out, we're at the Olympics," he added.

"I have a lot of respect for people that are here volunteering their time but I think we've got to really question if we're doing these things at the Olympic Games.

"We've had four years to prepare our teams, all the 20 teams here have done a really good job preparing for these Olympic Games, I would like our international federation to match that effort."

World Curling did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.