In the new season, Riedel is creating more time for the next generation of athletes

TELLERHAUSER - The anticipation is at its peak. When the ski jumpers start into their winter season in the Finnish city of Kuusamo, Peter Riedel has long since left his warm couch in the Iron Mountain plateaus and will be right next to the jump, come hell or high water. Just in time for the season, he and his team equipped the Ruka ski jumping hill with a new, innovative start-up lane.

As Managing Director of Peter Riedel GmbH, precisely this is his day-to-day business. His small Saxonian engineering company has equipped ski jumping hills all over the world. But while Riedel has long established an international reputation, another factor in ski sport is becoming increasingly important to him: young people.

Commitment to the youth
If they are not planning and working in the workshop or, as in Ruka, securing the World Cup events, Riedel and his team are traveling through the whole of Europe with their mobile K4 ski jumping hill in order to excite young ski jumpers or hobby skiers for ski jumping. In addition, as the main sponsor of the Children Four Hill Tournament, he also ensures that even young ski jumpers receive first-class conditions at their competitions early on.

For this very reason, the graduate engineer developed a track system last year, which is based on his patented, internationally installed system, but is made of cheaper stainless steel and can thus also be acquired by small clubs. The club track "Das Original" is already installed on jumping hills 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 have achieved as a small company so far. In the course of our development, however, it became clear to us that while we were able to provide first-class conditions for the big organizers, a smaller and more cost-effective variant had to be found for smaller clubs. Those clubs are exactly where the stars of tomorrow are formed, and we wanted to support that", says Peter Riedel, explaining the motivation behind developing the club track.

Resignation from the club presidential office - a difficult step
Just as it is important to him that the club to him: in 2014 he was elected president of the WSC Erzgebirge Oberwiesenthal and coined the motto "We for the Erzgebirge!", which should foster cooperation among other clubs and focus on one goal: to lead the winter sports region in the future.

In the honorary office, he supported the juniors at the base for more than three years and, with his entire company team, supported the summer Grand Prix of the Nordic Combined each year - the highlight of the Oberwiesenthal sports year. 

Recently, however, this effort took its toll. Not only his family, but above all his company suffered under the double burden. Riedel then resigned from his post as president of the WSC in November 2016. "I did not know how hard my work was on my employees. It was only since my resignation that I realized how often I left the company alone to be on the road for Oberwiesenthal. If I now look at the spirit and the motivation in the team, it was the right decision. We have started a great, sustainably promoting project with the club track and I cannot continue to be missing as a boss neither there nor in our large projects. I will gladly continue to help in Oberwiesenthal, but not at the top", says Riedel.

Staying away from the Oberwiesenthal sport will be close to impossible for Riedel anyhow. The love is anchored in the 53-year-old's biography: both father Eberhard and mother Hannelore were successful GDR alpine skiers. His father wrote sports history with the first German victory at the Chuenisbärgli in Adelboden in 1961. "Just as my parents have promoted me back then, it is also important for me to promote the next generations. Despite all the differences and the ever-increasing marketing of sport, the responsible people, sponsors, clubs, athletes, coaches and volunteers are and will remain a great family for me. And this must always be promoted, whether in Ruka and Oberwiesenthal, on a small club jump in Berchtesgaden or in front of a shopping center on our K4 hill! "