Sweden mourns sports legend Sven Tumba

Sven Tumba, one of Sweden's most famous ever sports stars, died in hospital in Stockholm on Saturday at the age of 80, following a long illness.

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Tumba made his name on the ice hockey rink and is generally regarded as one of the country’s finest players, but remarkably he also went on to excel at the highest level in football and golf.

Born Sven Johansson in 1931, he changed his surname in 1965 to his birthplace Tumba, a small town south of Stockholm.

He started playing ice hockey in 1951, and made his name at Djurgården where he won eight Swedish championships.

Tumba also represented Sweden at 14 world championships and four Winter Olympics and in 1999, he was pronounced Sweden’s best ever hockey player, ahead of modern day legends like Peter Forsberg and Mats Sundin.

Among his many honours, he won three World Championships - in 1953, 1957 and 1962, Olympic silver in 1964 and bronze in 1962 while in 1999 he was designated his country's best ever player.

He scored a national record 186 goals in 245 internationals from 1950 to
1966.In the 1950s Tumba also played football, again representing Djurgården, for whom he won a Swedish Championship medal, as well as playing one game for Sweden in 1956, against Norway.

After retiring from ice hockey, Tumba turned his attention to playing golf. He was hooked on the game at an early stage and went on to play the game professionally.

He founded the Scandinavian Enterprise Open, now the Nordea Masters and also offically introduced the sport to the Soviet Union, where he designed a course in Moscow.

During the Swedish Golf Federation's centennial in 2004, Tumba received an award as the most influential individual in Swedish golf.

During his final years, he devoted much of his time to the Sven Tumba Education Fund, a global project using sports to help children develop interests in reading and writing, teamwork, sharing and self-respect.

He was honoured on Saturday at all the hockey matches in Sweden's top professional league, the Eliteserien, with a one minute silence.