CORTINA D’AMPEZZO — Canada’s Brad Jacobs defeated China’s Xiaoming Xu 6-3 on Sunday in the first session with World Curling’s readjusted umpire setup in effect after a contentious weekend at Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium.
In a statement issued at the start of evening play, the sport’s governing body said the two umpires who had previously been monitoring athlete deliveries at the hog line will now only do so “at the request of competing teams.”
The development came after Canadian women’s skip Rachel Homan had her first rock pulled in a game against Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni on Saturday night. Canada went on to drop an 8-7 decision in an extra end.
The umpire felt Homan had “double-touched” the…