CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 11 : Four-time Olympic curler Niklas Edin is approaching his gold medal defence at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics with the confidence of a veteran who has seen it all before – describing the Games as “just one of many tournaments.”
The Swedish skip has collected three Olympic medals – one of every colour – across his four appearances and will once again be among the favourites in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
“We’re feeling good. It’s super cool having won the Olympics and we have had four years to kind of let it sink in,” Edin told Reuters on Wednesday.
“We’re still happy and proud of what we achieved, but now we’re trying to reset our goals and we’re going to try and win this tournament.
“It’s just one of many tournaments, even though it’s an Olympics. We’ve done it before. I’m going to try to treat it the same as we usually do for the European Championships and World Championships and the other Olympics we have played.”
Sweden enter the Games riding high after beating a number of top teams en route to winning the European Curling Championships in Lohja, Finland in November – a turnaround from their fifth-place finish in the same tournament and at the same venue in 2024.
“This time it was just really good conditions, actually, very close to what we just practiced on here,” Edin said.
“So on that kind of surface, we could play the good curling we usually do. That was a pleasant surprise. We played as well as we had hoped to, and then winning was a big bonus.”
Edin’s impressive haul of three Olympic medals and seven world championships has come at great physical cost to the 40-year-old, who has had surgeries on his back, elbow, shoulder, knee and ankle over the past decade.
Asked if he was 100 per cent fit for the Olympics, he said: “I would say still closer to 70, but it’s feeling pretty good curling-wise. So I’m just going to get some treatment and work on my body every day.
“But it’s only really one game a day, so we get a lot of opportunities to rest and recover.”
Edin’s Sweden are in action in the opening session of the men’s competition on Wednesday, where they will take on Italy at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium.
