Cathrine Grage

Cathrine Grage (born 13 October 1976) is a Danish Olympic speedskater, inline skater and cyclist. Grage and fellow skater Oliver Sundberg are the first Danish speedskaters to reach international competition levels since Kurt Stille ended his career in 1964.

Cathrine Grage at 3.000 m start during World Cup 2008 in Berlin

Cathrine Grage is also one of the best Danish cyclists and became a double national champion in 2012

Grage's results from 2006 to 2011 were good enough to pass the qualification limits of the International Skating Union for participation in the European Championships. She also competed regularly in ISU's World Cup from 2005 til 2011. Her best result at European Championships was 13th on the 3000 m. In 2006, she became the first female All Round Danish Champion.

Grage holds the Danish records at all distances, and has set a national record of 51 national records over the individual distances since she started competing in 2005: 10 on the 500-m; 8 on the 1,000-m; 10 on the 1,500-m; 14 on the 3,000-m; 5 on the 5,000-m; and finally 3 in the 10,000-m. In addition she has set a total of 8 further national records in the samalogue events (sprint combination, mini combination, small combination, and big combination). (As of jan 2012, Grage set a total of 61 national records, which is also a record in itself: The Danish record in number of Danish records held by a person).

As of December 2007, her Danish records were 43.19 on the 500-m, 1:23.07 on the 1,000-m, 2:03.21 on the 1,500-m, 4:13.85 on the 3,000-m, 7:20.45 on the 5,000-m, and 15:14.90 on the 10,000-m. All of these were already stronger than Kurt Stille's results, which up to March 2005 were Danish records for men.

The pre-Olympic 2008-2009 season was not a very successful one for Grage, e.g. regarding World Cup results. But in Calgary, March 2009, she again managed to set new national records, in fact six such over three days (by itself another national record): 42.99 on the 500-m; 2:01.88 on the 1,500-m; 1:22.52 on the 1,000-m; 4:11.86 on the 3,000-m; resulting also in the small combination pointsum record 166.853; and finally 15:11.84 in the 10,000-m.

Grage qualified for the World Championships Single Distances in 2008 in Nagano, where she placed 14th on the 5,000 m and 20th on the 3,000 m - and in 2011 in Inzell where she placed 16th in the 5,000 m and 19th in the 3,000 m.

Grage participated in her first Olympic Games, after only 4 years of participating in Long track speed skating. She competed in the 3000m Ladies event, as well as the 5000m. Grage placed 14th, in the 5000m, with a time of 7:23:83. A difference of +32.92 seconds off the gold. In the 3000m, Cathrine places 27th with a time 4:20.93 and a difference of only +18.40 off the gold.

Grages best results in World Cup was the 7th fastest time over all on the 5,000 m.

Grage stopped speed skating in 2011 and started competing in cycling. In December 2011, she won a silver medal on the 3 km in a time of 3.49 at the Danish Championships in track cycling.