The Winter Olympics curling has been marred by allegations of cheating, leading to intervention from the sport's governing body following vehement objections from players. Claims of double touching have sparked controversy in Cortina after a heated clash between Canada and Sweden last week.

Canadian star Marc Kennedy found himself embroiled in the dispute after allegedly making contact with his stones post-release. Sweden didn't hold back their feelings, with Kennedy retorting by telling his opponent to "f*** off".

Further incidents have occurred since then, including Team GB having a stone removed due to an alleged double touch. These controversies have taken World Curling by surprise and necessitated changes in match umpiring.

On Saturday, the governing body instructed two umpires to actively monitor deliveries and identify potential release violations. However, by Sunday evening they had reversed their decision, following a meeting with disgruntled Olympic Committees.

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World Curling announced in a statement on Sunday evening: "Following a meeting with representatives of the competing National Olympic Committees, an update in the stone monitoring protocol has been confirmed, beginning with the evening session on Sunday 15 February.

"This change in protocol will see the two umpires who had previously been actively monitoring athlete deliveries remain available in the field of play, but will now only monitor athlete deliveries at the request of the competing teams. The umpires when requested will monitor deliveries for a minimum of three ends."

World Curling had been compelled to release a statement explaining the regulations.

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"A stone must be clearly released from the hand before it reaches the hog line at the delivery end," they said.

"If the player fails to do so, the stone is immediately removed from play by the delivering team.

"If a hog line violation stone is not immediately removed and strikes another stone, the delivered stone must be removed from play by the delivering team, and any displaced stones are replaced, by the non-offending team, to their positions prior to the violation taking place."

The controversy which began with Kennedy's supposed violations has overshadowed debate surrounding the sport - and competitors are far from pleased.

Canadian skipper Brad Jacobs delivered a damning critique of the officials during the weekend, describing the alterations as "despicable".

"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," he said. Canada's coach Paul Webster was livid as well.

"We're not at some bonspiel in Saskatchewan just trying things out, we're at the Olympics," he added.