Season Start 2016/17

TELLERHÄUSER – Excitement is building. When the skiers start their winter season this year in Kuusamo, Finland, Peter Riedel has long left his warm couch in Tellerhäuser in the Ore Mountains and is standing at the jump in Finland in wind and weather. Just before the season, he and his team equipped the Ruka Jump with a new, innovative approach path. As managing director of Peter Riedel GmbH, that is his daily business. Skis jumps around the world have long since been equipped by the small Ore Mountains engineering company. Yet while Riedel has long made a name for himself internationally, another factor of ski sports is becoming increasingly important to him: youth development.

 

Commitment to Youth

When they are not tinkering in the workshop or, like in Ruka, ensuring World Cup events run smoothly, Riedel and his team travel around Europe with their mobile K4 jump to inspire young ski jumping fans or hobby athletes to take up the sport. In addition, as the main sponsor of the Junior Four-Jump Tour, he ensures that young ski jumpers receive first-class conditions for their competitions at an early age.

 

For exactly this reason, last year the trained diploma engineer developed a track system that, while based on his patented, internationally installed system, is made from cheaper stainless steel and can thus be purchased by small clubs. The club track 'The Original' was a hit—and is already installed on jumps in Berchtesgaden, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Oberwiesenthal, and the Swiss Gibswil.

 

"Our World Cup system is the most innovative on the market, and we are proud of what we as a small to mid-sized company have achieved so far. Nevertheless, through our development we realized that although we could provide first-class conditions for large organizers, we needed a more affordable option for smaller clubs. Because it is there at the grassroots where the stars of tomorrow are shaped—and that is where we wanted and had to help," explains Peter Riedel the motivation for developing the club track.

 

Resignation from the presidency of the club – a difficult step

Just as it is important to him that the club's youth have first-class jumping conditions, he also cares about the sport in his homeland: in 2014 he was elected president of WSC Erzgebirge Oberwiesenthal and shaped the motto "We for the Ore Mountains!" which should promote cooperation among themselves and with other clubs and focus on a goal: to lead the region as a flagship of winter sports into the future. In voluntary service, he supported youth work at the training base for over three years and, year after year, brought his entire company team to help at the Summer Grand Prix of Nordic Combined—the highlight of Oberwiesenthal's sports year.

 

Recently, however, this effort took its toll. Not only his family but especially his company suffered from the double burden. Riedel consequently stepped down from his post as president of WSC in November 2016. "I did not realize how heavy my club work weighed on my employees. Only since my resignation have I understood how often I left the company alone to be in Oberwiesenthal. Looking at the current mood and motivation in the team, it was the right decision. We have started a great, sustainably supportive project with the club track, and I cannot pull myself out as head there or in our major projects. I will gladly continue to help in Oberwiesenthal, but not at the top," says Riedel.

 

Staying away from the Oberwiesenthal sports scene – that is something Peter Riedel will probably never be able to do. His 53-year-old biography already shows it: both father Eberhard and mother Hannelore were successful alpine skiers in the GDR; his father even wrote skiing history with the first German victory at Chuenisbärgli in Adelboden in 1961. "Just as my parents supported me back then, it is important to me to support the next generations as well. Despite all differences and the ever stronger commercialization of sports, those responsible, sponsors, clubs, athletes, coaches, and volunteers remain a large ski sports family for me. And that is something we must always foster, whether in Ruka and Oberwiesenthal, at a small club jump in Berchtesgaden, or in front of a shopping center at our K4 jump!"