Ewa Laurance, “the Striking Viking,” is a Swedish pool player, sports writer, sports commentator for ESPN, and the author of three books on the sport of billiards. Ewa started playing pool at the age of 14 and one year later won the national championship title in 9-ball.

At the age of 17, she won the 14-ball and 1-ball endless title at the 1981 European Pool Billiards Championships in Bern, after which she moved to New York. She won the US Open 9-ball title in 1988 and 1991. In 1992, she was the first and so far only female pool player to grace the cover of the New York Times Magazine.

After her first marriage, she married sports presenter and actor Mitch Laurance in 1994, the year she also won the WPA Women’s 9-Ball World Championship in Chicago. In 2004, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Billiard Congress of America, which was followed in 2005 by a title at the Women’s Trick Shot Challenge in Las Vegas. Ewa and Mitch live with their family in South Carolina.