World stone-skimming championship rocked by cheating scandal

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FILE - Competitors compete in the World Stone Skimming Championships, held on Easdale Island on September 25, 2013 in Easdale, Seil, Scotland. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

A handful of people vying to be the next world champion of stone-skimming were disqualified from the annual contest in Scotland after a cheating scandal, reports say. 

The tournament draws hundreds of competitors each year to the tiny, car-free island of Easdale, home to about 60 permanent residents who host the event. 

How did they cheat? 

How It Works:

The rules are simple. According to The New York Times, contestants get three tries to make their stones go the farthest over a small quarry. The stone has to skip at least twice and must stay within its marked lane.

The stones have to be naturally formed on Easdale, and they can’t be wider than three inches. They’re measured using a device they call the "ring of truth."

What we know:

After the contest was over, organizers were alerted to potential cheating: some of the stones were "suspiciously round."

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"The competitors had taken larger stones from the island, and they had ground them down so that they were perfectly shaped and perfectly circular and fitted the ring of truth almost too exactly,"  Kyle Matthews, organizer and tournament "toss master," told CBC.

Matthews, who provides commentary for the event, said the cheater stones slipped past his "hawk-like vision." Matthews had, after all, watched the throwing of 1,200 stones.  

Fortunately, the cheaters admitted it immediately when they were questioned. 

What we don't know:

It’s unclear how many of the 400 contestants were disqualified. 

A storied pastime

The backstory:

Stone-skimming was a local pastime in Easdale, CBC reports, which led to the first world championship in 1983. It returned in 1997 after a break. 

The contest has surged in popularity: There were 27 countries represented in this year’s event. 

Last year, 2,000 people vied for 400 spots, and this year more than 2,000 people traveled to the remote island to watch. 

What they're saying:

Jon Jennings, a Kentucky native and the first American to ever be crowned champion, said as a child, his family always knew he had "a gift in stone-skipping.

"There's something very pure ... and very satisfying watching stones skim across the water," Jennings said, per CBC. 

"It transcends all social and economic barriers, because no matter how little money you make or how much money you make, you can go to a body of water and throw a stone in there and see if it'll skip."