A pumpkin weighing 1,198 kilograms has won the annual giant pumpkin championship at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen and set a new Nordic record. The winning grower, Peter Holst Olsen from Næstved, collected the 15,000 kroner first prize.
The contest, known in Danish as DM i Kæmpegræskar, is held in front of the Nimb hotel each year as the amusement park opens its Halloween season, and it draws pumpkin growers from across Denmark. Tivoli has staged the event for 19 years. Olsen’s entry is slightly heavier than an average Peugeot 208 car, and after the weigh-in he posed with Pjerrot, the white-faced clown in red lipstick and white costume who has been a symbol of the park since it opened in 1843.
The result beats the previous Danish record by 82 kilograms. The old mark stood at 1,116 kilograms. The gap between first place and the rest of the field was wide this year: Ole Christensen from Skanderborg took second place with a pumpkin of 349.4 kilograms, and Per Thomsen from Haslev was third with one weighing 326 kilograms. That means Olsen’s pumpkin weighed more than the other two podium entries put together.
Even at almost 1.2 tonnes, the Næstved pumpkin falls short of the world record. That belongs to the Paton twins from England, who grew a pumpkin weighing 1,278.8 kilograms in 2025, about 81 kilograms more than this year’s Tivoli winner. To encourage Danish growers to aim higher, Tivoli is offering a 25,000 kroner award to anyone who breaks the Patons’ record at its competition.
The weigh-in marks the start of Tivoli’s autumn programme, when the park is decorated for Halloween. For growers, the 15,000 kroner prize is the main reward this year, while the larger 25,000 kroner bonus remains on the table for whoever can bring a world-record pumpkin to Copenhagen in a future contest.
