Henry Nielsen

Henry Nielsen in 1930

Henry Nielsen , full name Holger Henry Nielsen , (born October 2, 1910 in Nørresundby , Denmark , † November 18, 1958 in Hillerød ) was a Danish middle and long distance runner.

Henry Nielsen was a member of the AIK Aalborg association. In 1930 he won his first national championship in the 5000 meter run . After a short interlude at Sparta Copenhagen, he returned to his hometown. He moved to the club Velo Nørresundby, which, however, was a pure football club at the time. A track and field division was created with Henry Nielsen as the only member.

On July 24, 1934, Nielsen defeated the Pole Janusz Kusociński in a competition in Stockholm in the 3000 meter run. He broke the two-year-old world record set by Kusociński in a time of 8: 18.4 minutes. In September of the same year he was able to win the bronze medal in the 10,000 meter run at the European Athletics Championships in Turin in 1934 . This made him the first Dane to win a medal at the European Championships.

Nielsen was Danish champion seven times. He won five championship titles in the 5,000-meter run and two more in the 10,000-meter run. In 1936 he started the 5000-meter run in Berlin at the Olympic Games . In his preliminary run, in which the five best runners made it to the finals, he finished 7th with 15: 25.0 minutes.

Over time, Henry Nielsen started having problems with amateur status. The Danish Association initially banned him for 18 months. On June 18, 1939, he was banned for life. Then Nielsen took over a coaching position in Germany. Henry Nielsen died on November 18, 1958 in Hillerød.

Web links

Henry Nielsen in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

↑ World record list in the statistics manual for the 2015 World Athletics Championships (engl.)
↑ Archived article by Karl Johan Hansen in the BT newspaper from December 16, 1983 (Danish) ( Memento from January 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )

personal data
SURNAME	Nielsen, Henry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Nielsen, Holger Henry (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Danish athlete
DATE OF BIRTH	October 2, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH	Nørresundby , Denmark
DATE OF DEATH	November 18, 1958
Place of death	Hillerød

[1] World record list in the statistics manual for the 2015 World Athletics Championships (engl.)

[2] Archived article by Karl Johan Hansen in the BT newspaper from December 16, 1983 (Danish) ( Memento from January 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )