“Two of the best games ever played”

Niklas Edin blinked, hard, numerous times. He did so again, after his team had hugged and yelled with joy.

It was as if he didn’t believe it. Olympic champion in his fourth attempt, 22 years after his journey began.

Edin’s five-time world champion squad of Oskar Eriksson, Rasmus Wranaa and Christoffer Sundgren defeated Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat 5-4 in the men’s team final at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

“It feels so crazy, I almost had to ask someone, ‘we have won, right?’

“It’s completely unbelievable.”

Before the final, Edin had described the matchup as a battle of titans. He acknowledged Mouat as the most consistent team over the past two years, and his own foursome as the most consistent winners of major championships, dating back seven or eight years.

His description was accurate. The two sides continued their recent rivalry with a scintillating display of precision curling at the Ice Cube.

Mouat started with last rock advantage—the “hammer”—and was forced to a single. Sweden took two and stole the third to gain control. After a British point in the fourth and two blanked ends, Mouat’s men stole the seventh frame.

That end was a nailbiter. Eriksson drew to lie three and hung his draw three inches wide and heavy. Mouat third Grant Hardie made a brilliant corner freeze and Team GB were all-in. Mouat guarded twice—Edin missed a setup chip and roll on his first throw—and could only watch as Edin tried an unlikely triple runback for five points … and missed.

In the eighth end, GBR manipulated a single from Sweden, gaining the hammer for the ninth end, trailing 4-3.

Hardie shone again in the ninth by making a sharp double under pressure, leading to a valuable blank end and the same scenario Canada’s Brad Gushue faced against the Swedes in the semifinal.

Sweden played the 10th end to perfection, which required their skip to step up and perform. After Hardie made another nifty shot—a hit and roll facing three Swedish counters—Edin make an amazingly precise board weight promotion to once again lie three. Mouat then went three-quarters buried in the back four-foot and the five-time world champion—three in a row with these teammates—faced a similar shot to the one he missed in the Sochi 2014 semifinal against Great Britain’s David Murdoch.

This time, Edin’s runback succeeded and Mouat was forced to tie the game at 4-4, and surrender last stone advantage in the extra-end.

In the end, Sundgren’s tick shots set the table for his team to continue their relentless march to gold. Mouat puzzled and puzzled, and on his last stone gambled on a faraway in-off attempt to lie two buried. He would have owned the button, under tight cover, but he missed by a fraction and Sweden were champions.

“God, it’s nice,” said Edin. “It’s obviously been an incredibly long journey with pretty disappointing defeats in a couple of the previous (Games).

“We know that the margins are small and it could’ve been the same thing this time too. We could’ve finished fourth with the same play that we had now, so just to get some results from this feels incredibly nice but also a lot more happiness than I thought I’d feel.

“I felt that it would be more of a relief as after the semifinal it was 100 per cent relief. Now it is an incredible amount of joy and feelings too.”

“They (Sweden) have done it all, really,” said Mouat, whose team—Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan—became the first medalists for Great Britain in Beijing.

“They’re just a very impressive team. We just had to come out and play a bit better.”

“It felt we put ourselves on the back foot for most of the game,” said Hardie. “And we had to play five phenomenal ends in the second half to give ourselves a chance, and we nearly did that.”

Edin and Eriksson now have gold, silver and bronze in their Olympic medal collection. Eriksson has a second bronze, after defeating Mouat in the bronze medal game in mixed doubles, making him the first curling athlete with four Olympic medals.

Mouat’s mixed doubles partner, Jennifer Dodds, is assured of at least Olympic silver when her Great Britain team, skipped by Eve Muirhead, takes on Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa in the Olympic women’s final.