Sweden's curling moms give their kids gold medals to play with after Olympic victory

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CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Sweden curling skip Anna Hasselborg related how her daughter told her before the Olympics that “it’s so boring when you don’t have a medal.”

So when Hasselborg marched over to her two kids with a glistening gold around her neck on the final day of the Milan Cortina Games, there was nothing to complain about — just a new toy to play with.

“I think they will also remember this week,” Hasselborg said. “They understood there was something big happening. ... I’m so proud to be able to show them that anything is possible.”

After upsetting top-ranked Canada in the semifinals, Hasselborg's team defeated Silvana Tirinzoni’s Switzerland 6-5 to win the women's competition Sunday.

Hasselborg’s 12th-ranked team celebrated by jumping up and down on the ice, with a Swedish flag draped over their shoulders.

Three members of Sweden’s team became pregnant after taking bronze at the 2022 Beijing Games.

“Becoming a mother, it’s not always easy to find that balance in motivation and that you want to have the fighting spirit because becoming a mom is so much more important than everything else,” Hasselborg said. “But we found it at the right time.”

Sweden has now won a women’s curling medal at six straight Olympics — stretching back to the last time the Games were held in Italy: Turin in 2006 — and four women’s golds.

Overall, it was Sweden’s sixth Olympic gold and 13th medal overall in Olympic curling — trailing only Canada (seven golds and 14 medals) in both categories.

Canada beat the United States for bronze on Saturday.

Sweden also won the mixed doubles in Cortina, with Isabella and Rasmus Wranå, the country’s first-ever team of siblings at the Winter Olympics, taking gold.

In the men’s competition, Canada’s controversial team swept aside cheating allegations to beat Britain for gold.

The other members of Sweden’s team were Sara McManus, Agnes Knochenhauer and Sofia Scharback.

Knochenhauer knocked out four Swiss red stones in the 10th end to set up Hasselborg’s decisive hammer shot.

“It is a game-winning shot, for sure, and it’s a team shot,” Knochenhauer said. “I feel like a revenge from the last Olympics when I had a similar shot but I didn’t make it. ... I really wanted to like really go for it. So I’m very proud of that.

“There’s a big tradition of great Swedish curlers,” Knochenhauer said after earning her fourth Olympic medal. “When we were younger we could believe that it’s possible even from a smaller country like Sweden.”

At 46, Tirinzoni was the oldest woman in the competition. She added Olympic silver to her four world championship golds.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics