Willi Kuhweide

Wilhelm "Willi" (also "Willy" ) Kuhweide (born January 6, 1943 in Berlin ) is a former German regatta sailor , Olympic champion , four-time world champion and three-time European champion.

Life

Star boat class, (GER 1122)

Soling - class, (GER 315)

At the age of 15 Kuhweide sailed his first victory at the Kieler Woche in the youth boat Pirat . After a Finn was donated to his hometown club Seglerhaus am Wannsee, Kuhweide was chosen to sail on the Olympic dinghy despite his young age. Already at the age of sixteen he won the 1959 Kiel Week and was fourth at the European Championships. A year later he won the European runner-up in Finn, and finally the European title in 1961 in Warnemünde (GDR). In 1963, Kuhweide won the world championship.

After winning the European Championship in 1964, Kuhweide was literally nominated for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo for the all-German team shortly before the end of the day: Horst "Hotte" Herrmann from the Association of German Sailors of the GDR had won the East-West elimination series. Nevertheless, the GDR nominated the supposedly stronger sailor Bernd Dehmel for the Olympic Games. The German Sailing Association of the FRG protested and finally got the series canceled. Instead, the European Championship before Copenhagen and finally a jump-off before Enoshima (near Tokyo) should count for the qualification. Dehmel received no approval for either of the GDR officials. Only half an hour before the start, Kuhweide learned from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that he had been seeded for the all-German team at the Olympic race in Enoshima. There the West Berliner won the gold medal despite an otitis media. Two years later he won the world title again in Finn in 1966, which he was able to defend in 1967. At the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968 , however, he sailed only 15th place.

Four years later in Kiel in 1972 , Kuhweide, now in the star boat together with Karsten Meyer , came third. In the same year he won his fourth world title with Meyer in the star boat in Puerto Azul . He took part in the Summer Olympics two more times, in 1976 in Montreal 6th place and 1984 in Los Angeles 8th place. When he took part in the Olympics for the fifth time in 1984, he was also the flag bearer of the German team.

Kuhweide was world champion in sailing four times (1963, 1966, 1967 and 1972; Soling runner-up in 1980). He won the European title three times (1961 and 1962 in Finn, 1974 in Soling with Axel May ; 1960 and 1967 Finn second and 1980 Soling second; 1965 and 1971 Finn third, 1959 and 1970 Finn fourth), won ten times he at the Kieler Woche (last participation 1983). In 1967 and 1971 he was German champion in the Finn dinghy (1967 runner-up). In 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977 and 1981 Kuhweide became German Soling Master with Axel May, and in 1985 he became German Star Boat Master. In 1974 Kuhweide and May won the title of British Soling runner-up, in 1975 and 1979 Kuhweide was German runner-up in Soling with a different crew .

In 2004/2005 he was commodore of the German Challenger Yacht Club , which organized the first German application for the America's Cup . The United Internet Team Germany finished the selection regatta for the cup, the Louis Vuitton Cup , but as penultimate.

In a list of the best, which awards points for medals in the most important competitions, Kuhweide was rated as the best Finnjollen sailor until 1987 , after which he shared the title with Lasse Hjortnæs . Only later did Ben Ainslie become the most successful Finn sailor. Kuhweide later achieved further successes in the Starboot and Soling .

In 2011 Willy Kuhweide was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports . He also received the silver bay leaf in 1964 .

The wooden Finn, christened Darling , with which Kuhweide celebrated its most important successes, is shown today in the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven .

Private

Kuhweide worked full-time as a pilot and later as an instructor for pilots for Lufthansa . As a pilot examiner, he moved to Phoenix in the US state of Arizona : in 1989 he took over the management of the Lufthansa commercial aviation school, and an airport was later built there according to his plans. In the meantime, Kuhweide is retired in the nearby town of Carefree ; He has another residence in Küssnacht, Switzerland on Lake Lucerne .

Kuhweide is a third marriage and has two daughters from his first marriage. His hobbies include cow pasture music (piano, accordion ) and above all playing golf ( handicap according to his own information 14).

literature

• Jack Knights: More fun sailing . (= Schneider pocket books, Volume 147; The green leisure series) German adaptation Willi Kuhweide and Karl Morgenstern. Munich, Vienna: F. Schneider Verlag 1979. ISBN 3-505-07147-1

Web links

• Portrait, dates and biography of Willi Kuhweide in the Hall of Fame of German Sports
• Willi Kuhweide in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Photo from Kuhweide 2005 ( memento from April 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), published in the Seglermagazin

Individual evidence

1. ^ Willi Kuhweide: The German sailing legend visits Kieler Woche. In: boot.de , 2004 ( Memento from December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
   Peter Mohilla & Robert Deaves 28th History of the Senior European Championship (page 1 of 7) In: www.classefinn.it ( Memento from May 7 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
2. ↑ Peter Mohilla & Robert Deaves 28th History of the Senior European Championship (page 2 of 7) In: www.classefinn.it ( Memento from May 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
3. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: sailing legend Willy Kuhweide turns 65 ) In: Yahoo Sport Germany , January 6, 2008, accessed August 7, 2008. Willi Kuhweide: The German sailing legend visits Kieler Woche. In: boot.de , 2004 ( Memento from December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
   
4. ↑ Christoph Schumann: Willi Kuhweide is coming! in Yacht online , January 16, 2004, accessed August 7, 2008.
5. ↑ Willi Kuhweide on www.databaseolympics.com ( Memento from January 21, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
   Olympic Games Medallists - Sailing In: gbrathletics.com , accessed August 7, 2008.
6. ↑ Master list on nrv.de ( Memento from September 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
7. ↑ Is Mateusz the best Finn sailor of all times? In: Finnfare . July 2004, p. 5 ( Memento from June 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2 MB, English)
8. ↑ ^{a b} Olympic champion Kuhweide celebrates 65th birthday. In: Online Focus , January 6, 2008, accessed on August 7, 2008.
   Willy Kuhweide: Olympic champion and flight captain. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , April 29, 2005, accessed on August 7, 2008.