This sculpture of Oscar Mathisen is located on the edhe of Oslo Frogner Park...a location which Wikipedia indicates was the site of many of his triumphs.
The lifesized work depicts Mathisen skating, crouched and with his hands behond his back. Curiously, he appears to be middle-aged and not the young man he was during his winning years. The statue is set on a concrete plinth about 3.5 feet high.
The sculptor is Arne Grotzer and it is dated 1958.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us that Mathisen:
"(October 4, 1888 – April 10, 1954) was a Norwegian speed skater and celebrity, almost rivalling Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen as symbols for a young nation (Norway became independent in 1905). He represented Kristiania Skøiteklubb (now Oslo Skøiteklubb)...
Oscar Mathisen was born in Kristiania (now Oslo) as the youngest of seven children. His parents, Carl Anton Mathisen (born in Østre Toten in 1852) and Pauline Mathisen (born in Vang, Hedmark in 1853), had five sons and two daughters: Carl Markus (1875), Petter Jørgen (1877), Johan Ingval (1879), Agnis Pauline (1880), Sigurd Valdemar (1883), Margit Antoni (1885), and Oscar Wilhelm (1888), all born in Kristiania.
Oscar Mathisen was National Champion in 1907 at the age of 18, and became World Champion the following year (four years after his brother Sigurd Mathisen), despite falling on the 500 m. During his career, he set 14 world records, with his 1,500 m record from 1914 standing unrivalled for 23 years. The day before he set that 1,500 m record, he had broken Jaap Eden's world record on the 5,000 m and thereby had become the world record holder on all distances. He became World Allround Champion five times (a record later equalled by only two other persons, Clas Thunberg and Sven Kramer) and European Allround Champion three times.
After World War I, he became a professional skater and he was Professional World Champion in 1920. He continued his skating career until 1929. In that last year of his career, then 40 years old, he went to Davos, where people were preparing for the European Championships, and proved that he could still skate fast by beating the world record times on both the 500 m and the 1,000 m, although his times were not recognised as world records because he was a professional skater.
Mathisen always was a gentleman in defeat and showed genuine respect towards skaters who had beaten him and top skaters afterwards, as illustrated by his losses against Nikolay Strunnikov and his message to Oleg Goncharenko. His life ended tragically. Mathisen killed his wife and then himself after his wife had suffered from severe depressions for many years.
In 1959, a statue of Mathisen was erected outside of Frogner stadion in Oslo, where he celebrated many of his triumphs. Every year since 1959, the Oscar Mathisen Memorial Trophy is awarded to the most outstanding speed skating performance of the season."