Olympic sailing: Three World Championship heroes and a pioneering friendship

The crowd was huge. Around 200 guests wanted to see the first German world champion in an Olympic sailing class for twenty years. And everyone wanted to welcome the 49er crew, who had won two medals at world championships within two months. Laser rocket Philipp Buhl and 49er artists Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel were beaming in the spotlight on Thursday evening when they were honoured at the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein (NRV) despite jet lag. The dynamic three turned the evening into a demonstration of team spirit, mutual respect and friendship, in which an Allgäuer and two Berliners promoted their sport in an infectious way in their joint Hamburg club.

As the evening's guest of honour, Hamburg's Senator for the Interior and Sports Andy Grote opened the celebration on the upper deck of the NRV clubhouse on the Alster. He, who is usually hardly ever out and about without his "Active City Hamburg" pin, had swapped it for the NRV Olympic Team badge on this evening - and was then delighted with "the first spectacular successes of the still young year 2020". Grote said: "Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel have impressively shown where they stand." Within two months, the 30-year-old helmsman and his 31-year-old coxswain had won silver and then bronze in their Olympic skiff discipline at two world championships, coming very, very close to the New Zealanders Peter Burling and Blair Tuke as Olympic champions, America's Cup winners and high-flyers in the fast-paced Olympic skiff discipline.

Bavarian gala in the north

Andy Grote then honoured 30-year-old Philipp Buhl, who was greeted with great applause on stage. Grote said: "Philipp Buhl is the first German world champion in the Laser and has written a piece of sporting history. Congratulations!" At the end of his speech, Andy Grote said to the successful sailors with a view to their Olympic endeavours: "We have great confidence in you and we are with you." NRV Managing Director Klaus Lahme, himself once one of the best German Laser sailors, then categorised Buhl's World Championship gold: "The title was won in the most difficult class." Johannes Polgar, who heads the NRV Olympic Team, summed up the reason for this in his laudatory speech for Philipp Buhl: "Philipp was 100 per cent committed to competitive sport."

Accolade from Kuhweide

What the much-praised man himself then said was typical of him, who had once learnt his trade from his father Friedl Buhl on a Flying Dutchman on the Großer Alpsee in the Alpsee-Immenstadt sailing club, always remained modest despite all his successes, likes to motivate others and today appreciates and supports the NRV's sponsorship idea. Buhl reported on the hundreds of "very warm messages" that had reached him after the world championship coup Down Under. He only got round to reading and savouring them all on the flight home. Among the verbal tributes was a personal email from Willy Kuhweide, who had sailed so sensationally to Finn Dinghy gold in the Enoshima area in 1964, where Buhl wants to compete in the Olympics this summer. Kuhweide wrote to Buhl: "Dear Philipp! My heartfelt congratulations on your World Championship title. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this title will give you the necessary maturity and composure for Enoshima. Bravo, your Willy".

On this memorable evening on Hamburg's Alster, Philipp Buhl calmly recalled that it had been "a long road to get here". He said: "I always dreamed of it and believed that it was possible." The Bavarian in Hamburg recounted how he had talked to his sailing friend Erik Heil almost a decade ago when they were training together in the German Armed Forces about their potential success. And as is his way, Buhl immediately apologised for "pretty much stealing the show from Erik and Thomas, even though they almost beat the best sailor in the world at the time". It was his way of bowing to Heil and Plößel's two world championship medals - and then publicly gloating about how Erik Heil motivated and inspired him every day with short messages from Geelong on one side of Phillip Bay to Sandringham on the other side of the bay during the two parallel world championship series for the Laser and 49er. Buhl says it was "invaluable tips and patronising messages that I was super grateful for". Heil and Buhl were and remain strong companions on the Tokyo 2020 course.