Eckart DIESCH

Sailors Eckart and his brother Jörg Diesch won a gold medal at the 1976 Montréal Olympics in the Olympic Yachting Center at Kingston, Ontario, in the West German two-person heavyweight dinghy (Flying Dutchman). They did not win a race, but had three seconds, a third, and two fifths as their scoring races. Prior to the final race the Diesch brothers noted that their centreboard was cracked. They were able to return to shore and replace it and get to the starting line in time for the race. They were awarded the Silver Bay Leaf, Germany’s highest sports award.

In 1968 and 1969 the Diesch brothers had won the West German Youth Championships. In 1972 they won the World Championships, also in Kingston. In 1974 they won the Kiel Week and a bronze at the Europeans. In 1975 they added another bronze at the Worlds. From 1975-77 and in 1980 they also won the West German nationals. Due to the boycott of the 1980 Moskva Olympics they were unable to participate, but in 1984 at Los Angeles they finished fifth.

Their father Bruno was also a world class sailor during the 1930s, and their cousin Albert Batzill and their niece Stefanie Rothweiler also became Olympian sailors. Eckart Diesch later became a dentist with his own practice in Friedrichshafen and was president of the Wurttemberg Yacht Club from 2004-16.