Can Anyone Stop the King of Olympic Curling?

Most knowledgeable curling fans would expect Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat to be the favourite heading into the men’s team fours competition in Cortina.

After all, the Scottish team are the world No. 1, the defending world champions and they’ve captured Grand Slam of Curling titles with alarming regularity.

But the king of Olympic curling is unquestionably Sweden’s Niklas Edin.

The defending Olympic champion skip also won silver at PyeongChang 2018 and bronze at Sochi 2014. His team of Oskar Eriksson, Rasmus Wrana – the new Olympic mixed doubles champion – and Christoffer Sundgren have been together since 2017.

In that time they’ve captured five world titles plus three European championships, the most recent coming this past November after a critical 8-5 win over Mouat in the semifinals.

Simply put, Edin wants to win more titles than any curling athlete ever has.

He is now 40 years old. He still gets regular off-season surgeries to keep his battered body going; he’s gone under the knife at least 13 times in his career.

At this stage it’s all mental strength and fortitude, and Edin has this in abundance. The Olympics, first and foremost, are a key driver of what makes Nik tick.

Of note, the Swedes did go an ungainly 0-5 at the last international major of the season, the Players’ Championship in mid-January.

Probably just a blip.

Meanwhile, Great Britain’s Mouat are still a young and spry quad with an average age of 31 (yes, curling success skews older). The two-time world champs lost to Edin four years ago in Beijing, and they’ll be thirsting for a return to the gold medal match on Feb. 21.

The skipper must overcome the disappointment of a second straight Olympic double-loss (semi and bronze match) in mixed doubles. He did just fine in men’s play at Beijing; one can assume he’ll do fine this time around.

Mouat’s men are fairly even against Edin in their head-to-head careers, but hold an 11-4 won/loss advantage since the start of the 2023-24 season. They defeated the Swedes 8-4 at their last matchup in mid-January.

The squad boasts the largest career win percentage over this field at almost 69%. With 67% since Beijing 2022, two out of three ain’t bad – but this is evidence nothing is assured, and GBR will have to earn every victory to reach the podium.

Canada’s Brad Jacobs could be on the outside looking in. Jacobs, the 2014 Olympic champion, is also 40 and wasn’t the first choice to skip this Alberta team; 34-year-old Brendan Bottcher was fired in April of 2024 and Jacobs swept in to assume command.

A solid performance led to their victory at November’s Canadian Olympic Trials in Halifax, but the squad has not won a Grand Slam title since they formed, losing two finals and three times in the semis, and failing to qualify for the Players’ playoffs a month ago.

Jacobs has a poor record against Mouat – only one win against 12 losses in his career – but has a decent 4-1 mark against the Swedes since the last Olympics.

Legions of Canadian fans – and those who like a brash skipper – won’t bet against him, however… and neither will the team at The Curling News.

As Jacobs himself said, while Team Mouat are “raising the bar in curling and we’re kinda chasing that bar … this (the Olympics) is not the same, this is a different level.”

Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller will make his Olympic team skip debut ahead of a strong squad looking to break a cycle of silver and bronze medals. They have a chance, following a stirring first Grand Slam win at Saskatoon in late December and a decent run to Players’ semis in January.

Removing his 15 losses to Mouat since the start of 2022-23, Schwaller has lost only 26 times in 69 games to the remaining skips in this field, a 62% winning rate.

The Swiss have also win six of their last eight matchups against Sweden, their last loss coming in August of 2024.

Joel Retornaz skips Italy’s host squad and things just haven’t been the same since his team’s magical run of three straight Grand Slam titles in late 2023.

They haven’t won one since, missing the playoffs entirely four times, though they did capture world bronze twice, in 2022 and ’24.

Retornaz, now in his third Olympiad, is 12-15 in his career versus Sweden but 8-5 since the start 2023-24. His men scored a big win over Jacobs at the last Players’ Championship.

USA’s Daniel Casper (Briarcliff Manor, NY) is a true wild card. He’s just 22 and is the first men’s skip to defeat John Shuster at the U.S. Olympic Trials… well, ever. Shuster played in six straight beginning in 2005 and won the first five until Team Casper finally took him down.

The Americans are 5-11 against the Olympic field (31%) but that includes a win over Edin in the only match they’ve played, back in January; they scored all deuces and held Sweden to singles.

Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell will need a fast start against Germany’s Mark Muskatewitz and China’s Xu Xiaoming to have a chance at the playoffs.

Ramsfjell has upped his quadrennial win percentage against this field – it’s now at 39% versus his career mark of 34% – and he’s on a 3-1 run against Italy with a recent 4-4 mark against Schwaller after a rough start.

Germany won a surprise Euro title in a breakout 2024-25 but haven’t impressed this season.

Muskatewitz is 3-3 in last six games against Norway and 3-1 in his last four against Edin. He’s also an even 5-5 (55-55 points) against Switzerland.

China got into hot water for a cheating scandal at the 2025 worlds – against Norway – and newly-empowered on-ice officials should be keeping an eye on them. The current news is the resurgence of skip Xu Xiaoming – a familiar face for many, starting at front end at Vancouver 2010 – and it’s quite a story.

His team’s recent form is excellent. At the Players’ Championship last month the Chinese defeated Mouat (taking two in the last end), and Edin (8-7), and Schwaller (stole 8-7 win in in extra) and Casper, who was trounced 8-3 in seven ends.

According to our panelists on the most recent Rock Logic podcast, they are a mysterious team playing a mysterious style of curling.

Czech Republic’s Lukas Klima rounds out the men’s field.

It’s a fantastic sight, seeing Czechia in men’s Olympic team play after the pain of seeing the previous generation – skipped by Jiri Snitil – suffer multiple last-stone losses to qualify at previous Games.

Their win percentage against this field shall not be mentioned, but they did beat Great Britain 8-2 in their last battle (following 10 losses).

A surprise win against either Switzerland (Feb. 13) or Italy Feb. (15) – who are a combined 23-0 against Czechia – would be really something.