The Wild Olympic Curling Scandal Is a Sign of the Times

"One of the most comforting things about watching sports is knowing that there are rules. Sure, caveats abound: Athletes and coaches will often try to evade those rules, or rewrite them to their own benefit, and all rules come with their own institutional biases and blind spots. Sports are not the meritocracy its biggest boosters tell themselves it is; sports egalitarianism may be an aspiration, but it has never been a reality and it never will be. Sports are unfair just like life is."

"But nevertheless, there are rules. There is a field of play, with boundaries and end lines. There is an opponent, a goal, an achievable objective. There is a scoreboard, on which points are tallied, and when the game is completed, there is a winner and there is a loser. There is clarity of purpose and, perhaps most important, ultimate resolution: The game ends, and then we all go on to do something else. (Probably watch another game.)"

"The Olympics are enjoyable for many reasons, but ostensibly, they're supposed to be the platonic-ideal incarnation of sports as a force for unity in a world that discourages it. More often, though, the Olympics reflect not our world's ideals, but instead our true selves. And I'm not sure that's ever been more plainly displayed than by the current curling scandal that has enveloped these Games, where we risk an international incident between Canada and Sweden...over curling."

"To catch you up: In a preliminary match, a Canadian player named Marc Kennedy was accused by a Swedish opponent of "double-touching" the curling stone - essentially tapping it after it passes something called a "hog line," allowing Kennedy to (theoretically) control where the stone goes past the line in which it is explicitly banned. Kennedy responded to the accusatory Swede by telling him to "fuck off.""

Sports create structured competitions with rules, boundaries, opponents, objectives, scoreboards, and final winners and losers. Athletes and coaches often attempt to evade or rewrite rules, and rules carry institutional biases and blind spots. Sports are not a meritocracy; egalitarianism in sports is aspirational rather than actual. Sports are unfair in ways that mirror life's unfairness. The Olympics are meant to represent unity through sport but frequently reveal human flaws instead. A curling incident at the current Games involved a Canadian player accused of double-touching, a profane response to the accusation, and the potential for an international dispute.

Read at Intelligencer