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Swedish champions.

Swedes become world curling champions. And among them a phenomenal player with a total of seven titles and one hundred and twenty-three matches won out of one hundred and sixty-two played. Skip Niklas Edin is a true constant among the world's curling players. The nearly forty-year-old right-hander has, in addition to the men's titles, gold from the World Junior Championships, seven golds from the European Championships and gold from the Universiade. In the final, which was played to the last stone, the Swedes (Edin, Eriksson, Wranå, Sundgren) eventually narrowly defeated the Canadians (skip Gushue) to return to the world throne after a year-long fast. But perhaps a little more than the final, the match between the Italians and the Scots, the bronze medal match, was discussed after the championship. Bruce Mouat, another world curling star (last year's world champion), was already leading his team by three points going into the tenth end. However, he failed his last stone - an uneasy double runback - and offered the Italians the chance to play an extraend for third place at the World Championships. A sensitively played Scottish stone shot did indeed tie the scores and the Italians managed to take the extra end. With the bronze they literally stole some Olympic points from the Scots. The men's World Championships, the first of two from which Olympic points can be taken, are history. Switzerland's Schaffhausen did their best and pulled off the championship with flying colours. On the plus side, we can consider a solid number of spectators (by European standards), the participation of the Czech team (relatively successful), interesting meetings of world curling celebrities, including the leadership of the World Curling Federation (inspiring) and good, professionally managed organization of the entire championship.