Gustav Weder's experience as a successful elite athlete, team manager, sports equipment designer and small business owner can be summarized as follows:
He owned and piloted a bobsled racing team from 1985 to 1994. Understanding all the performance determining factors in depth and delivering the best at the required time was critical to success. First, it was about acquiring the mental and athletic skills to be competitive at the Olympics, World Championships and World Cup Events. Second, it was about recruiting, training and leading qualified team members. Third, it was important to design, manufacture, or acquire competitive sports equipment. Fourth, it was important to create an environment with support staff and mechanics that enabled the team to repeatedly perform at a high level of excellence. And fifth, sustainable funding had to be secured. The overall success of this small business was always based on the quality of these components.
Repeated success over the years formed the prerequisite for being attractive for corporate advertising purposes. Only this consistency led to financially interesting advertising contracts and subsequently to an appropriate annual budget. Essentially, it was a matter of systematically analyzing and optimally organizing a service delivery chain. A ruthlessly honest comparison of competitors always formed the basis for decisions in personnel, technological or financial terms. Resources were invested where the benefits appeared to be greatest, and the disciplined implementation of the service delivery chain formed a central building block of success. Personal values such as meticulous planning and preparation, trust in team members, accurate competitive analysis, uncompromising and ongoing pursuit of excellent performance, precise execution by competent individuals, and humility in success as well as composure in defeat played a major role for the racing team. The planning and generation of sustainable performance - whether for an organization, a team or an individual - provided Gustav Weder with valuable practical insights.
Winning four Olympic medals - including one gold medal each in the two-man bobsleigh event in Albertville in 1992 and Lillehammer in 1994 - created an impressive palmares. In terms of Olympic success, this meant that Gustav Weder became the most successful Swiss bob pilot of all time.
Gustav Weder with medals at the
Albertville Olympic Games 1992
Various World, European and Swiss championship titles as well as overall World Cup victories round off his track record. He is particularly proud of the fact that these successes were possible with sports equipment he designed and manufactured himself. Gustav Weder is also very grateful that all participants remained healthy during the many missions. For him, many instructive experiences are linked to this sporting period of his life. Above all, the many encounters with like-minded people from all over the world still form a network of valuable friendships today.
Below is a link to the International Olympic Organization with further information: Gustav WEDER Biography, Olympic Medals, Records and Age (olympics.com)
In this regard, the episode of the two-man decision at the Albertville Olympics is worth reading:
Weder and Acklin leave it late in the bobsleigh - Olympic News (olympics.com)
Below is the link to the last published article on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversery of the Olympic victory in Lillehammer in the renowned Swiss newspaper NZZ. The article is in German:
Bob-Olympiasieger Weder/Acklin: Heute zelebrieren sie die Anonymität (nzz.ch)
Autograph cards will no longer be produced. He therefore asks for your understanding that autograph mailings cannot be carried out. A copy of the most recent card can be found here:
"Autograph Card Weder Bob Team 1994"
An authorized sports biography of Gustav Weder was published in German by Karl Erb in 1994: “Gustav Weder - Kampf um Hundertstelssekunden im Eiskanal”. Unfortunately, it is out of print, but should still be available for resale on various platforms.
