Niklas Edin: A man who’s done it all

If your world title was on the line at this BKT World Men’s Curling Championship 2025 in Moose Jaw, there’s every chance you’d feel under a bit of pressure. And if you were preparing to defend your hard-won Olympic Winter Games title in a few months, it’d be perfectly understandable to be feeling tense about that too.

That’s why it’s such a surprise to hear what Sweden’s Niklas Edin — defending World Champion and reigning Olympic Champion — has to say.

“I’m not under much pressure, actually. We’ve done it all, so there is no pressure basically coming from inside or outside our team.”

Niklas does admit though that there was a time where the pressure was really on. He explained, “What was putting pressure on us before was that we hadn’t won the Olympics. We felt we had it in us and it was definitely bugging us.”

Beijing in 2022 was Niklas’s fourth Olympic Winter Games, and he had come so close to winning at previous Games. He finished fourth in 2010 in Vancouver, took bronze in 2014 in Sochi (both of these with his previous team), and then silver in 2018 in Pyeongchang — where he carried the Swedish flag at the Opening Ceremony — before finally landing the biggest prize of all: gold in 2022. The silver and gold were won with his current team of third Oskar Eriksson, second Rasmus Wranaa, and lead Christoffer Sundgren.

Team Sweden with their gold medals at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games

“We basically played well for all the Olympics” Niklas recalled, “millimetres here and there — we could have won two, maybe three Olympics out of the four.”

“At least winning that one in 2022 kind of settled it, and now we’re happier with our careers.

“In particular, we’ve got more Europeans and worlds than we ever thought — we never even had a goal of winning close to what we have.”

Winning in Strange circumstances

Given his twelve-year quest to reach the top of the Olympic podium, it’s easy to understand Niklas’s pleasure at remembering what happened, although he also recalls how strange it was in Beijing, as the world recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said, “Winning the Olympics was such a massive moment. The emotional roller-coaster was massive. It was during Covid time, so it was a little tricky — it was weird. When we got to the Olympics everything was different, there were no crowds, so it was tough to perform.

“We were on the biggest stage but at the same time we had to do the [flow] tests every morning and stay away from people.”

Now, when asked what he would think if, in Cortina, he became the first curling skip to retain the Olympic title, he replied honestly, “If we win it again, it won’t even come close to Beijing”.

He continued, “Winning that Olympics was big. Once we got through it all, it was a massive relief, and a week after that, it was just joy.

“It was a big deal when we got back home, but Sweden had something like ten gold medallists that year, so it wasn’t that big for us. Publicity-wise, we did everything that we were asked to, but we just wanted to be with friends and family.”

Team Sweden celebrating their gold medal win © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Big ambitions from a young age

Niklas also took the chance to reflect more widely on his curling career, “Maybe I expected to have a long curling career.

“When I started at the Curling Academy at 16, they asked us about long-term goals, and I said, ‘I want to be the best of all time’ — so we set a really high goal.”

He also gave some background to how his current team felt when they first started playing together.

He said, “Early on, we felt that we were the team to beat. We based our strategy on playing our tactics and if we do that well, the other team don’t have a say in it.

“We don’t really think about what our opponents are doing. We know that as long as we’re performing at a high level, everyone else is going to have to adjust to that strategy.”

Team Edin won their first gold at the Le Gruyère European Curling Championships 2014 © World Curling / Richard Gray

Still got that drive

Niklas’s injury problems in the last few years have been well documented, and he also took the chance to provide an update, “My body is in decent shape. I’ve been going fairly hard at training for five weeks now, trying to peak for this event. But for the Olympics I want eight or nine months of consistent training.”

And trying to explain his team’s mindset now, as opposed to before they won Olympic gold, he said, “We don’t have the same massive goal anymore that drives us. We still want to do well of course, and maybe, when we don’t feel that drive, then we probably won’t play anymore.”

However, before that day comes, there is still an Olympic title to defend.

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