Danish Figure Skating Championships
The Danish Figure Skating Championships are an annual figure skating competition organized by the Danish Skating Union to crown the national champions of Denmark. The first Danish Championships were held in 1912 in Copenhagen. Early competitions featured events in single skating, pair skating, and speed skating, and were sporadic for the first several decades on account of unsuitable weather as well as World War II.
Medals are awarded in men's singles, women's singles, and ice dance at the senior and junior levels, although not every discipline is held every year due to a lack of participants. Denmark has not seen competition in pair skating since 1965. Per Cock-Clausen holds the record for winning the most Danish Championship titles in men's singles. Cock-Clausen was 51 years old when he won his last championship title in 1963. Anisette Torp-Lind holds the record in women's singles. Ayoe Bardram and Alf Refer hold the record in pair skating, although Refer won an additional three titles with other partners. Vivi Christiansen and Kurt Poulsen hold the record in ice dance.
History
The first Danish Championships were held in 1912 in Copenhagen. Early competitions featured events in single skating, pair skating, and speed skating. Prior to the construction of indoor ice rinks, the Danish Championships were dependent on the weather, as lakes needed to be sufficiently frozen in order for skaters to practice as well as compete. Only five championships were held between 1912 and 1929, since mild winters did not provide suitable ice surfaces for competitive skating. No competitions were also between 1943 and 1945 owing to the German occupation of Denmark during World War II. In 1957, Danish champion Per Cock-Clausen reported: "In Denmark, the winter has been very mild... There were only a couple of days in December and one or two in March when skating has been possible on the lakes."The first indoor ice rinks in Denmark opened in Esbjerg and Østerbro in 1959; within eight years, eleven rinks in Denmark had been constructed: six on the Jutland peninsula and five in Copenhagen. Ice dance debuted as a championship event in 1964, while pair skating last appeared in 1965. Since 1960, the Danish Championships have only been interrupted once: in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.