A pumpkin weighing 1,198 kilograms has set a new record at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. Peter Holst Olsen, a grower from Næstved, won the Danish Giant Pumpkin Championship on Saturday 3 October and took home a prize of 15,000 kroner. The result gave the Copenhagen park’s annual contest its heaviest pumpkin to date and a winner from Zealand.
The previous Danish record was 1,116 kilograms, which means Olsen’s entry came in 82 kilograms heavier. The Local Denmark noted that the pumpkin weighs slightly more than an average Peugeot 208 car, and its report also described the result as a new Nordic record. The weigh-in took place on the Saturday in front of the Nimb hotel inside the gardens, and Pjerrot, the clown who has been Tivoli’s symbol since the park opened in 1843, posed with the winner for photographs.
The rest of the field finished a long way behind the winner. Ole Christensen from Skanderborg came second with a pumpkin of 349.4 kilograms, and Per Thomsen from Haslev was third with one of 326 kilograms. Both were only about a third of the size of the winning entry, a gap that underlines how far ahead of the field Olsen finished this season. The three podium places went to growers from three different towns, Næstved, Skanderborg and Haslev, showing that serious contenders came from several parts of the country.
The championship, known in Danish as DM i Kæmpegræskar, has been held for 19 years and opens Tivoli’s Halloween season each autumn. The world record still belongs to Ian and Stuart Paton, twins from Lymington in southern England, who grew a pumpkin weighing 1,278.8 kilograms in 2025. Olsen’s pumpkin fell about 80 kilograms short of that mark, though it was comfortably the heaviest ever recorded at the Danish event. Visitors to the park can see the giant pumpkins as part of the Halloween decorations that now fill the gardens.
Tivoli has now raised the stakes for future entrants. The park is offering 25,000 kroner to anyone who beats the Paton twins’ world record at its competition, a prize well above the 15,000 kroner paid to this year’s champion. For now, Olsen’s pumpkin stands as the benchmark for Danish growers, and the result gives the Copenhagen park a record-breaking start to its autumn programme.
