The track was 333 and a third metres round, poured in cement, banked for bicycles and motorcycles. It opened in July 1923 on western Kungsholmen, and the horseshoe-shaped grandstand wrapping the southern curve could hold up to 10,000 people.
The first season was busy. Nineteen cycling meets, ten of them international, plus sixteen training evenings. Swedish championships were ridden over 5,000 and 10,000 metres. The Nordic championships came to Hornsberg in 1924 and again in 1927. The infield was kept free for general athletics, and Harry Persson put on boxing galas there. In winter the ground was flooded to make a skating rink for the children of the Freemasons' orphanage, which stood right next door.
The builders were two brothers, Paul and Ruben Ljungberg. Their timing was poor. By 1924 — barely a year after the opening — the owning company, AB Velodromen, was in financial trouble it never got out of. In 1927 the track lost its approval as a competition and training venue, which effectively ended it as a sporting proposition. It stood for four more years and was demolished in 1931.
Kristinebergs IP opened on the same ground in 1933. Nothing of the banking survives above the surface, but the sports use never left the site.
Written by Nik Frost
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