Legendary sportsmen: Sailing star and role model: Willy Kuhweide celebrates his 75th birthday

"Sailing has taught me, among many other things, that - beyond a certain amount of talent - hard work and commitment are definitely rewarded with success." This statement by Willy Kuhweide has not lost its validity to this day. He himself has confirmed it time and again with countless successes as a result of hard and disciplined work over many decades.

Water and air were and are the elements of his life: Willy Kuhweide won his legendary gold medal in the Finn dinghy in 1964 under sail, before heading Lufthansa's commercial flying school in Phoenix, Arizona, from 1989 to 1994. Today, on 6 January, the Berlin native is celebrating his 75th birthday in his adopted home of Carefree in America. "I don't think about my gold medal that often anymore," Kuhweide told YACHT online shortly before his day of honour, "but I am reminded of it, sometimes more, sometimes less, in a pleasant way by those around me." Kuhweide sent a personal "wish list", writing: "I very much hope that science will find its way out of the 'fairytale world' and back to science. That politicians will shed their 'faith component' and act like politicians again and that there will no longer be so many people who have the words 'Climate Consultant' on their business cards."

The five-time Olympian, four-time world champion and three-time European champion is one of the most successful sailors in German Olympic history. Kuhweide wants to celebrate his day of honour "on a small scale with a good dinner in special surroundings with his wife and friends". He ended his sailing career in 1986 for professional reasons - but his name is still synonymous with sailing success under the German flag. His gold medal is on display in a glass case in the Seglerhaus am Wannsee clubhouse.

Kuhweide's fame was fuelled above all by the spectacular gold medal he won in 1964. At that time, Germany competed at the Olympic Games in Japan with a mixed team of FRG and GDR athletes. In the Finn Dinghy discipline, in the shadow of the Cold War, there was a fiercely contested series of eliminations and serious disputes between the two sailing associations involved in the run-up to the Games.

In the end, both Willy Kuhweide, who was only 21 years old, and his GDR rival Bernd Dehmel were sent by their respective associations to Enoshima, once again an Olympic venue in 2020. There, at the height of the sporting tug-of-war over whether Kuhweide or Dehmel would be allowed to compete, the then IOC President Avery Brundage even suggested that both sailors should be allowed to compete. However, other nations lodged protests against this. Kuhweide only found out half an hour before the starting signal that he was to start for Germany. He opened the series with a second, a first and a fourth place and never relinquished the lead from then on despite a severe middle ear infection and open and inflamed eardrums. "I could no longer hear the starting shots, I took the start time with the visible cloud from the starting pistol," recalls Kuhweide of the series that was to make him world-famous.

Back in Berlin, he was celebrated by hundreds of thousands of fans and gave his sport an unprecedented high. Celebrated in the media, he was even allowed to explain the basics of sailing to "darling" Uschi Glas in Las Palmas. The talented piano and accordion player sang on records with hits such as "Liebe kleine Segelbraut", but remained true to himself and his desired professional goal and made a career in aviation. Kuhweide's favourite memories include his childhood, which he spent sailing with his parents and three sisters on the family boat "Wunschtraum" on Lake Wannsee. He followed his motto: "Learn, earn, return" in 2005 as commodore of the first and so far only German America's Cup campaign - he wanted to give something back to German sailing.