Danish Niels Holst-Sørensen was a runner, officer, NATO representative and member of the International Olympic Committee.
Danish athlete, sports influencer and soldier Niels Holst-Sørensen still represented at international sports events at the turn of the 2010s. Photo of the International Olympic Committee event in Copenhagen from 2009. PDO
Danish runner and social influencer Niels Holst-Sørensen has died at the age of 100.
Born on the nineteenth of December in 1922, Holst-Sørensen can be characterized as a Nordic sports legend, as he made an impressive career as an athlete, sports influencer and soldier.
The Dane won the EC gold in the 400-meter run (with a time of 47.9) and the EC silver in the 800-meter run (1.51.1) at the Oslo Games in 1946. They were the first European athletics championships in which women and men competed at the same time.
Holst-Sørensen, who won no fewer than 18 Danish championships, competed in the 1948 London Olympic Games. He was ninth in the 800 meters.
Holst-Sørensen was a soldier by training. The major general advanced to become the commander of the Danish Air Force and in the 1980s served as his country’s representative in the military alliance NATO.
The man was active in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for no less than 25 years (1977–2002). He was on the organizing committees of the 1992, 1994, 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics. The IOC has chosen Holst-Sørensen as an honorary member.
The peak moments of Niels Holst-Sørensen’s running career were in the 1940s. Wikimedia Commons