Marius Lefevre

Marius Lefevre competed frequently in gymnastics and track and field events on a regional level. He represented Odense’s Gymnastikforening and, after moving to the capital, Handelsstandens Gymnastikforening. Around the turn of the century, he won first prizes in gymnastics competitions in København (Copenhagen) and Nyborg. In track and field, a second prize in triple jump in an event in København is known. In 1900 and 1901, Lefevre became club champion of Odense’s Gymnastikforening. He was then trained as a gymnastics teacher and appeared in the 1910 documentary about gymnastic exercises together with sports physician Abraham Clod-Hansen. In 1912, at the age of 37, he was a member of the Danish gymnastics team that won silver behind Sweden in the Swedish system at the Stockholm Olympics.

One year later, he attended a training course in Silkeborg led by Kristina Elisabeth Björkstén, a Finnish gymnastics coach and theorist. Lefevre also worked as a sports journalist advocate for modern developments in gymnastics including Björkstén’s methods and women’s gymnastics. In the 1920s, he worked as a therapeutic gymnast and masseur in København.

After World War II, Lefèvre attacked Niels Bukh, the coach of the Danish gymnastics team in Stockholm and founder of the Gymnastics School in Ollerup, in the press for his sympathies for Nazi Germany and their system of labour service.

With his wife Louise Marie Lefevre (née Mygind), he had four sons and one daughter. After his wife’s death in 1932, he married Inger Margrethe Sørensen.