Edin completes medal collection

BEIJING • Niklas Edin is a five-time world curling champion, and has won silver and bronze medals at the Winter Olympics.

Yesterday at the Beijing Games, the 36-year-old Swede finally captured what he desired the most, an Olympic gold medal - the only major title missing from a career in which he has established himself as the most decorated skip in the history of the sport.

It was also three-time consecutive world champions Sweden's first men's Olympic curling gold after Edin led them to a 5-4 extra-end victory over Britain in a controlled but tensely-fought contest at the National Aquatics Centre.

"It feels so crazy, I almost had to ask someone... 'We have won, right?' There's a lot of emotions out there," said Edin.

"God, it's nice. It's obviously been an incredibly long journey with pretty disappointing defeats. It's been many nice years and a lot of success, and to get this Olympic gold medal now is an extra tick."

He read the ice to near-perfection in a close, tactical battle, forcing Britain to draw for one in the 10th end before he delivered the knockout blow in the extra end without playing his final stone.

The door was open for Britain's Bruce Mouat to potentially lie two and seal the win but he could not dislodge the red Swedish rock in the button despite frantic efforts from his sweepers.

Edin, and teammate Oskar Eriksson, had been chasing Olympic gold with Sweden for more than a decade.

Every four years, the Swedish quartet got one step closer. Sweden were in fourth place at Vancouver 2010, won bronze in Sochi in 2014 and, with Beijing teammates Rasmus Wranaa and Christoffer Sundgren, finished runners-up in Pyeongchang four years ago.

"It makes it even sweeter now that we've reached the top of the podium. The pressure and the monkey's off our back," Edin added.

"We've done pretty much everything correctly, and now we needed the result to get the receipt that what we're doing has worked."

On Friday, Canada beat the US 8-5 to win the bronze and ensure the country avoided a podium shutout at the Olympics, after their mixed doubles and women's teams missed the play-offs.

There was a literal silver lining for Britain, however, as their second-placed finish brought the nation's first medal at the Beijing Olympics.

The disappointed British team also at least had the consolation of a tweet of congratulations from the royal family saying: "You should be incredibly proud of your performance this week."

Mouat said of Sweden: "They have won nearly every medal possible in the curling world, so they're a very impressive team.

"We just had to have a better start and we could have probably won that game. That's going to sting for a while."

But Britain have one more chance to win an elusive gold with the women's quartet, skippered by Eve Muirhead, when they take on Japan in the final today.

Separately, lawyers for the United States figure skating athletes have asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to rule that the skaters can receive their team silver medals before the end of the Beijing Olympics, a US Figure Skating spokesman said yesterday.

The International Olympic Committee had decided no medals for the competition - won by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team - would be presented until the doping case of Russian 15-year-old Kamila Valieva had been resolved. That matter could take weeks or months.

The ROC finished top while Japan were third.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS