After engineering studies at the Chalmer Technical University in Gothenburg (Sweden), he moved to Switzerland to continue his training at the Zurich Polytechnicum. At this time, he became interested in sport. Throughout his studies, he practised athletics and rowing. In 1891, he even beat the Swedish 150 metres record, with a time of 16.4 seconds. After obtaining his engineering degree, Edström left Europe for the USA, where he was employed by the Westinghouse Electrical Manufacturing Co. in Pittsburgh. Here, too, he continued his sports activities, joining the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. In 1896, he left the Pittsburgh company to go and work for the General Electric Co. of New York. After that, he returned to Switzerland, where the city of Zurich employed him to work on building trams. In 1900, Edström became Director of the Gothenburg Municipal Tramways, a post he held until 1903 when he was appointed Director of ASEA, a large Swedish electrotechnical company. He held this post until 1933, when he became Chairman of the Board. Parallel to his work in industry, Edström was actively involved in the Swedish sports movement, but also internationally, becoming one of the most influential sportsmen of his time. Among other things, he became Chairman of the Swedish Amateur Athletic Association in 1901, and also chaired the Swedish Sport and Gymnastics Association until 1940. He was also the co-founder of the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) in 1913, as served as its President until 1946. Edström contributed to the Olympic Movement in 1908, when he was named Chef de mission of the Swedish team at the Olympic Games in London. He held this position again at the Games in 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932 and 1936, as well as playing a major role in the organisation of the Games in Stockholm (1912). In 1920, Edström was co-opted as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Sweden, after a postal vote. The following year, he was elected on to the IOC Executive Committee, and was elected Vice-President a decade later, in 1931. He held this position until being officially named IOC President in September 1946. His predecessor, Henri de Baillet-Latour, died in 1942, and Edström had served as acting President during the final years of the Second World War. Even if the IOC’s activities were disrupted by the conflict – the Games in 1944 were cancelled, for example - Edström performed this difficult task with considerable aplomb.Taking advantage of his native country’s neutrality during the War, he succeeded among other things in maintaining contact between the various IOC members. Then, after the conflict, he quickly convened the Executive Board, which awarded the first post-war Games to London, in 1948. After officially becoming IOC President at the 1946 Session in Lausanne, Edström continued throughout his term of office to show the leadership and efficiency which had characterised his acting presidency. His diplomacy was, moreover, required on several occasions for managing the IOC’s activities in the delicate post-war context and then during the Cold War. Among other things, he had to take the sensitive decision to exclude Japan and Germany from the Games in 1948 and work to strengthen the ties of Olympism with the USSR. At the age of 82, Edström retired as IOC President in 1952. Appointed IOC Honorary President by acclamation, he died in Stockholm in 1964.