Closed geodesics on geodesic spaces of curvature \(<\infty\) (Q1987047)

The existence of a nontrivial closed geodesic was proved in previous works, first for any analytic convex surface, later for any surface of genus zero, further for any closed Riemannian manifold. In the present paper, the existence of a nontrivial closed geodesic is proved for any compact, connected, noncontractible geodesic space with curvature \(<\infty\). It is well explained with easy examples showing that all assumptions in the statement are necessary.