Sport notes | 24-hour testing people

Catch up on this week’s sports happenings with our news in brief

24-hour testing people

Tom Kristensen’s 2 Audi Sport Team was the fastest during the Le Mans test day, which took place last weekend. The test day is the last on-course preparation drivers have before the 24-hour race, and Kristensen’s teammate Loic Duval was the fastest of all the drivers. Le Mans takes place on the weekend of June 22-23. Kristensen is the most successful driver in the competition’s history with eight wins.

Golden generation sees red

The under-19s national football team have failed to qualify for their European championship this summer following a 1-0 loss to Portugal on Sunday. The game started badly when keeper Oliver Korch was sent off in the seventh minute. The resulting penalty was saved, but in the closing minutes – of a game that the Danes needed to win to qualify – the referee awarded a second one, which was not. 

It had to be Frank

The under-19s national football team’s coach Thomas Frank has been named the new coach of Brøndby IF. He replaces Auri Skarbalius, who was fired along with sporting director Ole Bjur by the club’s new-look board of directors following a disappointing season. Frank had previously spent four years coaching the under-16 national team before overseeing the under-19s for one year, but has never trained a senior team before.  

Outrolled in Odense

The national wheelchair rugby team finished sixth in the Denmark Wheelchair Rugby Challenge, the sport’s biggest event since the 2012 Paralympics, which finished on Sunday in Odense. The tournament is seen as a warm-up to next year’s World Championships, which will also be held in Odense. The team managed just two wins over Sweden (57-54) and Belgium (57-47). The US beat Australia 61-56 to take home the gold.

Hoping for better at Betis

Stephan Andersen, who played in goal for Denmark at Euro 2012, has signed a two-year contract with Real Betis. The Dane joins the La Liga club from French team Evian Thonon Gaillard, where he had found himself sidelined for most of last season, costing him his place in the national team in the process. Betis finished seventh in the league and have qualified for the Europa League next season. 

Parken’s wild card 

Talented young racer Michael Jepsen Jensen has been awarded a wild card spot in the Danish FIM Speedway Grand Prix at Parken in Copenhagen on June 29. Last year the 21-year-old Dane won the Nordic Speedway Grand Prix and the individual Under-21 World Championship. Jensen will represent Denmark at Parken alongside Nicki Pedersen and Niels-Kristian Iversen.




  • Becoming a stranger in your own country

    Becoming a stranger in your own country

    Many stories are heard about internationals moving to Denmark for the first time. They face hardships when finding a job, a place to live, or a sense of belonging. But what about Danes coming back home? Holding Danish citizenship doesn’t mean your path home will be smoother. To shed light on what returning Danes are facing, Michael Bach Petersen, Secretary General of Danes Worldwide, unpacks the reality behind moving back

  • EU Foreign Ministers meet in Denmark to strategize a forced Russia-Ukraine peace deal

    EU Foreign Ministers meet in Denmark to strategize a forced Russia-Ukraine peace deal

    Foreign ministers from 11 European countries convened on the Danish island of Bornholm on April 28-29 to discuss Nordic-Baltic security, enhanced Russian sanctions, and a way forward for the fraught peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow

  • How small cubes spark great green opportunities: a Chinese engineer’s entrepreneurial journey in Denmark

    How small cubes spark great green opportunities: a Chinese engineer’s entrepreneurial journey in Denmark

    Hao Yin, CEO of a high-tech start-up TEGnology, shares how he transformed a niche patent into marketable products as an engineer-turned-businessman, after navigating early setbacks. “We can’t just wait for ‘groundbreaking innovations’ and risk missing the market window,” he says. “The key is maximising the potential of existing technologies in the right contexts.”

  • Gangs of Copenhagen

    Gangs of Copenhagen

    While Copenhagen is rated one of the safest cities in the world year after year, it is no stranger to organized crime, which often springs from highly professional syndicates operating from the shadows of the capital. These are the most important criminal groups active in the city

  • “The Danish underworld is now more tied to Scandinavia”

    “The Danish underworld is now more tied to Scandinavia”

    Carsten Norton is the author of several books about crime and gangs in Denmark, a journalist, and a crime specialist for Danish media such as TV 2 and Ekstra Bladet.

  • Right wing parties want nuclear power in Denmark

    Right wing parties want nuclear power in Denmark

    For 40 years, there has been a ban on nuclear power in Denmark. This may change after all right-wing parties in the Danish Parliament have expressed a desire to remove the ban.

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