Jochen Schümann is celebrating a big birthday, even though he doesn't really care that much about it himself. Instead of celebrating his special day at home in Penzberg, the three-time Olympic champion is in action as a tactician on Sir Lindsay Owen Jones' "Magic Carpet 3" at the Loro Piana superyacht regatta and is sailing towards an unchallenged victory on today's final day after only taking first place so far. He will celebrate his 65th birthday at home with family and friends on Sunday.
From child boat builder to World Sailor of the Year, from East to West, from Olympic gold to the America's Cup summit: Germany's most successful sailor Jochen Schümann celebrates his 65th birthday on 8 June. The husband, father and grandfather looks back on half a century of successful competitive sailing. However, the model athlete is far from thinking about retiring. The three-time Olympic champion and two-time Cup winner continues to spend around 100 days a year on the water as a professional.
Germany's last Olympic sailing champion won his third and final gold medal in Savannah in 1996. However, the rise of the former GDR sports star began more by chance, as he would actually have liked to become a racing cyclist - which his mother did not allow due to the dangers involved. Because Schümann had taken part in a boat-building club at his school in Köpenick as a twelve-year-old out of technical interest, the teachers ended up asking him to sail the self-built plywood Optimist on the Müggelsee at home. This developed into a global career that even the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification could not stop.
A LIFE WITH MANY TURNS
For the then 35-year-old Schümann and his two Soling co-sailors Bernd Jäkel and Thomas Flach, the historic events meant a more extreme turnaround in their lives than they had ever experienced in a boat. "It was a culture shock for us. I was the one who was always interviewed at the time, but our Soling crew consisted of three fathers with children. Keeping it all together was complicated. We didn't feel accepted and went door-to-door," says Schümann, describing the new start in reunified Germany, including the diversions via a job in a Danish sailmaker's shop.
Like many GDR athletes, Schümann had not become rich as a "state professional" before reunification, but he was secure. This safety net was torn apart with the end of the GDR. Schümann and his companions had to learn to manage on their own. The Olympic victories in the Finn dinghy in 1976 and the three-man keelboat in 1988 were helpful, as was the fact that sailing was and remained free of doping scandals.
To this day, Schümann takes a pragmatic view of reunification itself: "The fatherland became a little bigger, but it was still the same fatherland." The 1.89 metre tall helmsman experienced his darkest hour in sailing during the bitter Olympic final defeat against his former Danish employer and Soling rival Jesper Bank in front of the Sydney Opera House in 2000; silver was a disappointment for Schümann. Despite this, he was hired as sports director by the Swiss America's Cup team Alinghi and its helmsman Russell Coutts in Sydney - the start of a professional career for the Berliner.
WITH ALINGHI TO THE AMERICA'S CUP SUMMIT
As Sports Director, Schümann was the first and only German sailor to win the most famous silver jug in international sailing twice, with Alinghi in 2003 and 2007. "A total of ten years as a Swiss meant a favourable fate for my entire career," says Schümann. The ambitious sailing promotion project Sailing Team Germany, which was later initiated by Schümann with the Hamburg concept shipyard and its founder Oliver Schwall and which raised millions of euros for German Olympic sailing, failed after seven years due to the ongoing struggle with the German Sailing Association over decision-making authority, the type of promotion and the use of funds. This is why Schümann cannot imagine a leading role in organised sailing in the future: "My enthusiasm for sharing my experience has taken a real knock as a result of the disputes."
Nevertheless, together with business partner Schwall and former Beiersdorf boss Stefan Heidenreich, he has launched a new funding initiative called OneTeam, is planning a German team for the new Star Sailors League Gold Cup 2021 national competition and is keeping an eye on the national sailing team. His assessment of the chances of winning a medal one year before the 2020 Olympics: "We don't have any absolute medal candidates, but a few good crews like the 49er sailors or Philipp Buhl in the Laser. They have a chance."
Schümann will celebrate his 65th birthday a day late in his home town of Penzberg with his wife Cordula and friends. Penzberg became the Berlin native's adopted home in 1992 when he took over the sporting management of the Daimler-Benz sponsorship project AeroSail. As a keen mountain hiker, Schümann enjoys living in Bavaria, where the three gold medals are also located. "They're a nice ensemble in a wooden box built by a friend of mine by the socks." The silver medal is not there, "it's in another drawer with other things."
Note: You can read an interview with Jochen Schümann in the next issue of YACHT.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
