Sports news and briefs

Danish players won three titles at badminton’s European Championship in Sweden last weekend thanks to the ladies top seed, Tine Baun, women’s pairing Kamilla Rytter Juhl/Christinna Pedersen, and men’s pairing Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen. Meanwhile, a guest pairing, Mads Pieler Kolding/Julie Houmann, took silver in the mixed doubles despite their limited experience, and Line Kruse/Marie Roepke also came second. There were no representatives in the men’s final, after both Jan O Jorgensen and Viktor Axelsen bowed out in the semis. Axelsen lost to Sweden’s Henri Hurskainen, the eventual runner-up, who had beaten the Danish top seed Peter Gade in an earlier round. Gade recently confirmed he will retire after this summer’s Olympics. 

Lasse Schone is leaving NEC Nijmegen to join Ajax on a free this summer. The midfielder, 25, who has eight caps, has agreed a three-year contract. Schone, who has played in the Netherlands since he was 16, told media he was delighted to be joining the same club as his idol Michael Laudrup. He will join Nicolai Boilesen, Christian Eriksen and Viktor Fischer – and is the club’s 21st Danish signing.   

Jannik Hansen will represent Denmark at the forthcoming Ice Hockey World Championships, following the failure of his side, the Vancouver Canucks, to qualify for the quarter-finals of the NHL play-offs. He joins Philip Larsen, Lars Or, and Frans Nielsen on a roster that is already looking like one that will serve Denmark well. The two-week tournament starts on May 4. 

The Danish national team’s players have been banned from making comments on social media sites while they remain involved in Euro 2012, according to TV2. Lars Berendt, the Danish FA’s spokesperson, confirmed that the players will only share their opinions at official events and post-match interviews, and that there was a need to “limit meetings with the media” during the event. 

Caroline Wozniacki will donate the proceeds of her debut single, ‘Oxygen’, to the Polish and Danish Paralympic teams. The single has a rather strange video, even by the Dane’s impromptu Macarena-dancing standards. An Alsatian retrieves her tennis balls, she gets on a bus with a stalker, who then she takes to dinner, and then it goes behind the scenes – spoiling the allusion that she might have ditched Rory McIlroy.