Thomas Flach

Sailor Thomas Flach first partnered Wolf-Eberhard Richter and Bernd Jäkel in the Soling class and captured the East German national title in 1978, and again in 1982 and 1983. Flach and Jäkel then partnered the famous Jochen Schümann from 1985, and the crew won four consecutive national titles from 1987-90. They also won four European titles in 1986, 1988, 1993-94, won silver medals in 1985, 1987 and 1990, and bronzes in 1989 and 1991. At World Championships they won gold in 1992, silver in 1991, and bronze in 1986 and 1996.

Schümann, Flach and Jäkel also won two Olympic gold medals, in 1988 at Seoul representing East Germany, and 1996 at Atlanta, for re-unified Germany. At Barcelona in 1992, the crew finished an unfortunate fourth losing the match race against Great Britain 2-1.

Flach later sailed with the 20 square metre dinghy cruiser and won the German nationals in 2001, 2003-05, 2007-09, and the German Open 2013-18. He also won the 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2010 European Cups. In 2015, Flach added another European title, in the Soling class with Schümann and Ingo Borkowski. It came 29 years after his first title. By profession, Flach was a graduated economist.