Jørgen Kornerup-Bang

Jørgen Kornerup-Bang was one of the outstanding Danish track & field athletes prior to World War. However, he never competed in the Olympic Games although he was entered in javelin throw and decathlon for the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm. Until 1908 he represented Københavns Fodsports-Forening (KFF), later renamed KIF Atletik, and subsequently the local club Silkeborg Fremad. He won a total of 14 Danish championships including the decathlon in seven consecutive years (1907-13). Moreover, he won the hammer throw (1908, 1909, 1911), the discus throw (1908), javelin throw (one hand 1909, both hands 1913) and the 100 m hurdles (1910) and added six silver and three bronze medals. He also set nine Danish records: three each in the decathlon and the javelin throw, two in the hammer throw and one in the weight throw. With the javelin he was the first Dane to exceed the 50-m-mark at the 1914 AAA championships, in which he finished third.

Kornerup-Bang, who was trained as a master bricklayer in Silkeborg, was encouraged to go to England to become a gymnastics teacher. Here he volunteered for the British Army during World War I, and his athletic skills predestined him to become an instructor in hand grenade throwing at the Royal Fusiliers 17th Service Battalion. His battalion was deployed to the war in France in November 1915. He saw action, amongst others during the Battle of the Somme, but was eventually killed by a defective hand grenade during an instruction in northern France. Lance Sergeant Kornerup-Bang was buried in a military cemetery in Somme.