Niklas Edin
Anette Norberg
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Niklas Edin leads 4 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Niklas Edin at #1 and Anette Norberg at #2.
The case for Niklas Edin
The most decorated curler in history by any measure. Edin skipped Sweden to eight world titles between 2013 and 2026, including four in a row across 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022, and closed his career by beating Canada 9-6 in the 2026 final in Ogden to break his own record. He is also the only skip to win three Olympic medals, taking bronze at Sochi 2014, silver at PyeongChang 2018 and finally gold in Beijing 2022, plus eight European Championship titles. Six of his eight world finals were won against Canadian rinks, which is the statistic that best captures what he did to the sport's balance of power: he took a country with a fraction of Canada's playing base and made it the default favourite for a decade. He retired in May 2026, weeks after the eighth title, with a combined 38 championship medals on World Curling's recognised list.
The case for Anette Norberg
The first curler of either sex to win two Olympic gold medals as a skip, taking Turin 2006 and then defending in Vancouver 2010, a feat no man matched until Brad Jacobs in 2026. Her career is remarkable for its length as much as its peaks: she won a silver at the 1988 Calgary demonstration event and was still winning world gold in 2011, twenty-three years later. That 2011 title in Esbjerg came after her Olympic double and gave her three world championships in total, alongside two silvers and four bronzes, plus seven European titles between 1988 and 2007. She competed at fifteen European Championships. In Sweden she is the figure who made curling a mainstream televised sport, and the pipeline that produced Anna Hasselborg and the current generation runs directly back through her.