Estonian Sports Photojournalist Lembit Peegel Celebrates His 90th Birthday
Estonian sports photojournalist Lembit Peegel turns 90 on 18 October. His archive holds about a million images, and he is still taking photographs.
Lembit Peegel, an Estonian sports photojournalist, turns 90 on Sunday, 18 October. Estonia's public broadcaster ERR describes him as an outstanding sports photo correspondent. He has worked in sports photography since 1963 and is still active today.
Boxing years
Peegel was born in Tallinn on 18 October 1936. In his youth he boxed. In 1957 and 1958 he won silver medals at the Estonian championships in the flyweight division (up to 51 kg). From 1955 to 1958 he was also a champion of the Soviet-era sports society "Spartak".
Career in the press
Peegel began working in sports photography in 1963. From 1989 to 1993 he worked at the newspaper Spordileht, and from 1993 to 2000 at Eesti Päevaleht. He photographed the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Lillehammer, Atlanta and Nagano.
Honours and archive
In 2008 Peegel received the Estonian state sports award for lifetime achievement. In 2011 he was made a Knight of the Order of the White Star, fifth class.
His photo archive contains about 600,000 negatives. Together with digital pictures, his body of work comes to roughly one million images. Peegel is still photographing today.
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