Thailand-based Swedish Gold coach Curre Lindström has an incurable nerve disease

The Swedish ice hockey coach Curt Lindström, who became a hero in Finland when he led the Finnish team the Lions to World Cup gold in 1995, has been diagnosed with the incurable nerve disease polyneuropathy. 

The now 81-year-old coach, who got the name Gold-Curre after the win, has been living in Thailand for a long time and in an interview with Aftonbladet, he explains that he was diagnosed about a year ago.

Polyneuropathy is a nerve disease that attacks the nerves throughout the body. The disease can be slowed down with medication, but otherwise, it progresses all the time.

“I have cried inside many times. But now I am slowly learning to live with it,” Lindström says to Aftonbladet. 

Curt Lindström lives in Hua Hin and enjoys the tropical weather in Thailand although he does not get out much. “Sure, it hurts when I can not go out on the daily jogging trip I have done all my life, or when my balance and legs can not take a round of golf. It’s impossible nowadays. But I have realized that it is something I have to live with,” Lindström says.

At the same time, however, Lindström points out that he absolutely does not want people to feel sorry for him or that his illness should be seen as a sob story.

“I have had and have a wonderful life. Now it is a new phase in life and it is just to accept that I can not do certain things anymore,” he says.

Aftonbladets reporter visited Lindström in Thailand and describes an everyday life that is largely controlled by the disease:

“The reality is obvious, even if Curre tries to make the disease problems smaller than they really are. He has to fight his way off the couch and it takes an eternity before he can stand in front of the camera outside his beloved Thai home. It is literally only a few meters to go and he has to stay against walls and fences to keep his balance ,” the reporter writes. 

Curre Lindström has been invited to this spring’s World Cup tournament in Tampere, where the World Cup gold from 1995 will be celebrated. But Lindström does not know if he will be able to travel to Finland in May.