I wish you all the best on your 84th birthday, Dad! Let yourself be celebrated and stay as active as you are! I would like to share a few thoughts about your birthday with you.
It has always been wonderful for me to grow up in such a sporty family. This is probably why I am professionally connected to sport. You have played a big part in that, for which I am very grateful.
Your ambition was to make your mark in sport since your youth. The result was a World Cup victory and participation in three Olympic Games, which at that time was really difficult for a citizen of the GDR. You didn't even have your own Olympic team and hardly any opportunities to train properly. Your perseverance and creativity—quickly, the ski lift line at the Fichtelberg was repurposed as a downhill slope—were ultimately rewarded. Rewarded with many top placements and an impressive ski career for a resident of the Ore Mountains.
All the more beautiful that your birthday this year falls exactly in the time of the Olympic Games in Beijing. You can follow the Games on television and at the same time look back on many successful years yourself. Your determination and willpower still let you glide down the slopes and cover kilometer after kilometer on cross-country skis at the age of 84.
You have passed on many of your positive qualities to me, for which I am extremely grateful in my professional life as an entrepreneur, but above all as a person. I am also grateful for your support, with which you have always stood reliably by my side and hopefully will for a very long time!
Now let yourself be celebrated! Here's to many more successful and active years!
All the best, your son Peter