Torbjörn Blomdahl: The Billiards Legend Who Conquered the World

– It’s absolutely crazy in Colombia. In Bogota at the World Cup competitions in February, I could not sit in the audience. It became very crowded around me, and after an hour of signing autographs and taking pictures, I said “now I have to go”, to find a reason to get out from there.

Torbjörn Blomdahl is a legend in the world of billiards. Many agree that he is the best of all time at three-way carom.

Nevertheless, he is not used to any big headlines in the Swedish media. 30 years ago he moved from Sweden to Germany.

– It looked different when I lived in Sweden. They rolled in a pool table at Tipsextra and we played at halftime and there was a lot of media. We had the World Cup competitions in Sweden, broadcast live on TV4. Since I moved, things have gone the wrong way.

– It was a little my fault, but I couldn’t help that I moved to Germany. Maybe it would look a little different if I had stayed in Sweden, he says.

Is it sad that you are not seen as much in Sweden anymore?

– Not for me, but for fun it’s boring.

“It’s a very analytical game and that’s probably my thing. Analyzing what happens after a shock and how to keep going and try to break patterns that other people have followed for decades,” he says.

Photo: Cuesco

When he won his first gold at the European Championships, the Berlin Wall divided Europe and Mikhail Gorbachev had just been named leader of the Soviet Union. Many years have passed, but Blomdahl has always been on top of the world.

Earlier this year in Ankara, he once again defeated the younger generation of pool players. With that, he took the tenth EC gold alone. 39 years after the first victory.

– It feels really good that I can still challenge, but usually I don’t think too much about such things. I think mostly about the next competition.

– At first I was driven by the will to win. That was all, but now he had to surrender, now it’s more the love of the sport and the fact that I want to improve and continue to live on my game that drives me.

When DN arrives the newly crowned European champion, he is sitting in a hotel room in the Mexican city of Morelia. It is there to advertise the sport of billiards and to meet various sponsors. He’s not there to play in any competitions – but Torbjörn’s record is still full of competitions.

During the year, he competes in Vietnam, Turkey, South Korea, the Netherlands, Portugal and Egypt. Traveling around is nothing new for Torbjörn, he’s had it all his life.

– I have been lucky to have the opportunity to travel and have friends in all corners of the world.

Do you ever feel like it’s getting hard?

– No, no, not at all. I live alone, my son has moved out. It is enough to be at home for a day. In the evening it starts to feel empty and then it’s good to get away again the next day.

That he would Betting outright on billiards was clear early on. Father Lennart Blomdahl was a skilled player and ran a billiards club in Helsingborg, where the family moved from Gothenburg when Torbjörn was 11 years old.

– I probably have worse ball sense than my parents. I got the talent from my father, and my mother was also very good at juggling.

Master Lennart wanted him to study at university – but Torbjörn had other plans. The pool cue was stuck in his hand and he had clear goals of being able to make a living from his sport.

– I was very lucky. I only got good when there was prize money in the sport. Without that opportunity, no one would know what I did today, he says and continues:

– It happened by itself, at first I had some work here and there in Helsingborg, but they didn’t want to keep me because I was away at tournaments all the time.

Things went up quickly, in 1982 he won his first SM gold and in 1985 he won the EC. In a sport that usually takes a long time to learn, he has stood out. He broke through early despite the fact that in many cases it takes 10-20 years to learn all the tactics and strategies.

– We had a sense when 28-year-old Vietnam won the WC last time, and that says something about the level of difficulty. It’s very difficult to win anything before 30. Being a good three-ball player is like a university education, he says.

The reason Torbjörn Blomdahl moved from Sweden was to meet his future wife: “She had a job in Germany and I had a job all over the world. It didn’t matter where I lived. We had children and we stayed there.”

Photo: Avdo Bilkanovic/Bildbyrån

Torbjörn has won so much so that it is difficult for him to identify a specific moment as the best in his career. But if he has to choose, it will be a very recent memory. From WC 2019 in Randers, Denmark.

– My 80-year-old father was in the audience. The members of the club in Helsingborg had kidnapped him. He is so nervous when I play so he would rather not join. But they were strong and caught him.

– Dad always says he will have a heart attack if he sees my games. I won the first two in overtime, and then he ran. And I was able to hug my 80-year-old father when I won, feeling great.

The father’s support has meant a lot.

– It has given me the incredible love for the sport. He’s always used big words to describe how good this game is, and it’s stuck.

26-year-old Torbjörn Blomdahl in Helsingborg in 1989.

Photo: Bildbyrån

When he gets he is quicker to answer the question about the most difficult moment of his career, the 1998 World Cup final in Rezé, France.

– I met Dani Sánchez, a young Spaniard. I was popular before. He scored a lot of points and I got impossible chances. I didn’t know what to do and it took a long time. Then 1,200 people started rioting. Everyone laughed and it was an awesome experience. It is not very common in a billiards context for the audience to encourage a player.

Torbjörn Blomdahl is the best carom player of all time – but he is not yet finished or a complete expert. Last year he had a personal best in consecutive hits, 26. Just two short of the world record of 28.

He will not allow the billiard queue until the corporation stops completely – in the meantime, he hopes to encourage more people to play billiards.

– It is the best thing, he says.