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Home2025July 2025Simply the best: the Jo Aleh, MNZM, story

Simply the best: the Jo Aleh, MNZM, story

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In a sailing career that’s been short on financial assistance and long in determination and mental fortitude, Jo Aleh has clocked up an impressive sailing CV. Among other achievements, she has won Olympic gold and silver medals, a World Championship, and is the first woman to win the Tanner Cup. This is her story.

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Born in 1986, the only daughter of her Israeli father, Shuki Shukrun, and British mother, Daniella Aleh, Jo Aleh grew up in Auckland and had a lifelong dream of boats from an early age.

“All my childhood scrapbooks are full of boats.”

It was watching Team New Zealand win the 1995 America’s Cup that sparked Aleh’s boating dreams into reality. Inspired, she persuaded her father to buy her an elderly P Class. After learning to sail and race with the Ponsonby Cruising Club’s (PCC) programmes, she won the first race she ever entered at the Kohimarama Yacht Club (KYC).

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In 1998, her father took Aleh to Israel for her bat mitzvah, the coming-of-age ceremony for Jewish girls. (The male version is a bar mitzvah.) Part of this ceremony involves family and friends giving financial gifts, which Aleh used to buy a purple GRP Optimist, sail number 3697.

Aleh and Powrie on their way to winning Gold at the 2012 London Olympics.

“I told everyone I was going to the Olympics.”

In 1998, she sailed an Optimist in her first Nationals, finishing second in the women’s section, a sign of things to come. Her secret sauce, which Aleh has employed ever since, is her attention to detail on the boat, combined with a high work rate.

“I’m a busy bee on a boat,” she chuckled.

In 1999, Aleh was the top woman at the Optimist Nationals, a feat she repeated the following year. Aleh then turned to the P class, starting with an old, abandoned P equipped with a borrowed rig. She managed to trade and wrangle her way into progressively better P-Class boats, competing in her first P Nationals in 1999. She became one of the top women P Class sailors and won the 2002 Tanner Cup. This is a mixed event, and Aleh became the first woman ever to win it.

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“That was in P345.”

Aleh attended Westlake Girls High School, where she competed in Sunburst interschool events and also raced Starlings, once more with a borrowed boat.

“I loved the Starling, it was the first boat I had with a proper bow.”

By 2002, Aleh had set a goal to compete in the Olympics, which meant switching to International classes such as the Europe and Byte. Being GRP production boats, these boats were significantly more expensive.

Aleh’s parents had separated several years earlier, although they resided in separate houses in Muriwai, so sailing entailed considerable travelling. Finances were extremely tight, and Aleh had to make do with budget equipment.

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“I don’t think Mum realised how expensive sailing was going to be. We’d regularly max out her credit card to buy the bare minimum to compete at each regatta. She’d drive me all over the country. I owe her a lot. The first thing I did when I got some sponsorship later was buy her a new car.”

In her final year at Westlake, Aleh switched to the Europe class, and in 2002, she won a Rotary Scholarship to compete in the Cork Regatta in Canada, in the Byte Class.

“That was amazing, my first interaction with Yachting New Zealand [YNZ] and my first overseas regatta. I won it by miles in both Youth and Open divisions.”

Over the next two years, Aleh won the New Zealand trials in the women’s Laser Radial, competing in the 2003 and 2004 ISAF Youth World Championships in Poland and Spain, respectively. She won a silver medal in the 2004 Laser Radial Youth Worlds. The following year, she competed in the European Laser, finishing eighth, which qualified her for the YNZ High Performance sailing team. This provided her with access to professional fitness training, a coach, and financial assistance with airfares and expenses for overseas regattas.

Things improved financially in 2006 when Colin Cauldwell secured Aleh a multi-year sponsorship from TV3 and F&P. This arrangement benefited Aleh enormously, and she won one of the world events, the Delta Lloyd Regatta in Holland, followed by a silver medal at the Pre-Olympic Test Event in Qingdao, China.

Earlier, Aleh had begun an Engineering degree at Auckland University, but by 2007, she’d dropped out of university to concentrate on sailing.

“I really loved engineering, but sailing was more important.”

In 2007, Aleh teamed up with her old friend Olivia (Polly) Powrie. The pair entered the 420 World Championships at Takapuna, which they won by a significant margin after
a short three-month campaign.

“We had a lot of fun, and it was super easy to work together.”

Aleh competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the Women’s Laser and took the lead after the fifth race. However, the following four races didn’t go as well, and she finished seventh out of 28 overall.

“I felt I’d wasted four years of my life. Afterwards, I realised there were holes in my campaign, and one of them was the mental side. I said, ‘I’m not doing that again.’”

Due to Aleh being too light for the Laser, Andrew Brown suggested she switch to the 470 Class, and she asked Powrie to join her. The pair hit it off straight away, and within
a month, they committed to a four-year campaign for the 2012 London Olympics. They dedicated countless hours to sailing off Takapuna, perfecting every manoeuvre. 

Aleh and Powrie travelled to Europe in 2009, where they placed fourth in their first international event, the Delta Lloyd Regatta. With Nathan Handley coaching them, they secured sixth in their first 470 World Championships in 2009 and remained in the top four over the following three years. 

“Going into London, we felt confident we had some real strengths with no major weaknesses. We didn’t sail that well but went into the medal race guaranteed either gold or silver.”

Aleh and Meech competing in the Paris Olympics 2024 in the 49er

The pressure was on, but the pair had trained well and had good processes.

“We handled it so well that when we crossed the line knowing we’d won the gold, we looked at each other and said, ‘Is that it?’”

Aleh and Powrie became the first New Zealand women to win Olympic gold in a sailing dinghy, and in 2013, they were made members of the New Zealand Order of Merit for their services to sailing.

After a break, the pair re-committed to competing in the 2016 Rio Olympics. They won the 2013 470 World Championships and consistently ranked in the top four worldwide throughout the four-year cycle. Ranked number one in 2016, the pair felt confident going into Rio. Unfortunately, they received a DSQ in race one (a marginal OSC) and another DSQ (marginal port and starboard) in race six. Two DSQs usually spell disaster at Olympic level, and the pair felt that after race six, they’d squandered four years’ worth of work. However, they bounced back mentally and gave it their all. To everyone’s surprise – including their own – they won silver. 

Aleh and Powrie – Olympic Gold 2012

“Rio was the regatta I’m most proud of. We were sailing exceptionally well. We won four out of 11 races, got into the medal race, and then kept out the three boats we had to beat to win silver.”

Powrie retired after Rio, but Aleh wanted to continue. She attempted to get into offshore sailing but encountered the sexist attitudes prevalent in sailing at that time.

“I’d done two Olympics, won gold and silver, yet that meant nothing. I didn’t mind starting at the bottom, but males with lower results got treated very differently, while I had to fight for everything.”

Aleh encountered the same issue when, as a PR exercise, she and Peter Burling were invited to test sail one of the America’s Cup AC45s. Within minutes, Burling was offered the helm, while Aleh waited in vain for her chance at it.

“I was older than Pete, and had won an Olympic gold to his silver. This was the first really obvious time I had encountered this situation, and I was shocked.”

Aleh tried out for Team Brunel for the 2017/18 Volvo Ocean Race but wasn’t selected.

“I’m small and struggled physically. A lot of the work is moving sails around, so you have to be very strong.”

Instead, Aleh joined Ernst & Young as a business consultant, working both full-time and part-time for the next three years. She provided part-time coaching to the New Zealand Nacra squad, coaching Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson in their Nacra through to the 2020 Tokyo Games, where they finished 12th out of 20.

“I really enjoyed coaching, putting something back into the sport. Coaching was a better work/life balance than a full-time athlete.”

Reinspired by Tokyo, Aleh decided to give the Olympics another go. In 2022, she persuaded Molly Meech to join her in a 49er FX for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

However, with hindsight, their 2.5-year campaign in a new class was too short, and they finished seventh.

“It was my third Olympic-class dinghy and the most fun campaign I’ve done. The 49 is an amazing boat to sail.”

Straight after Paris, Aleh and Meech joined TNZ’s PUIG Women’s America’s Cup (PWAC) campaign. The Kiwi PWAC team certainly had their moments, but a couple of average races in the shifty conditions, along with some unforced errors, hurt their chances. They made it to the semifinals, where they finished fifth out of six.

Aleh coaching Nacra 17 sailors Wilkinson and Dawson

Aleh has been part of the Black Foils team since 2022, serving in the sixth role as strategist and backup to Liv Mackay. This year, she has also assisted Coach Sam Meech.

“I’m enjoying Sail GP, but there’s only one sailing role for women, so it’s hard.”

Off the water, Aleh has held governance roles at World Sailing, serving four years as Chair of the Athletes’ Commission and the past four years on the Equipment Committee.

However, with the end of her Olympic campaigning, yet still fit and strong enough for other forms of sailing, Aleh is currently in a transition period.

“I have to figure out what’s next for me.”

It was a privilege to spend an afternoon with Aleh. Her matter-of-fact detailing of her career couldn’t hide the sheer grit and determination required to compete successfully at the Olympic level, nor could it conceal the mental demons she had overcome. 

“The highs are unbelievably high, but the lows are terrible. I’ve really had to work on my mental toughness.”

Although it’s improving these days, a significant difference still exists in how men and women are treated in sports. Aleh openly shared the extra price she has had to pay as a woman with a sporting career. Taking time off to develop a solid relationship and have children can impact any Olympic campaign. Realising that her biological clock was running down, Aleh recently had some of her eggs frozen. Now aged 39, this hopefully gives her the option of having a child. However, this all comes at an extra financial and emotional cost that men never even have to consider. 

“This is an area that isn’t discussed in sports. I believe all female [Olympic] athletes in their mid-thirties who want to pursue another campaign should be offered fertility support,” adding with a chuckle, “That’s my next mission.”

Unquestionably, Aleh has done an outstanding job for New Zealand sailing. Four Olympic campaigns, with two seventh places, a silver, and a gold, are meritorious accomplishments. That it all began on a solo parent’s modest budget, with no prior family sailing experience, is truly remarkable. 

Committed, determined, and focused, Aleh has more than repaid her mother’s and YNZ’s investment and brought home the goodies. Best of all, her story is far from over. Watch this space.

Jo Aleh, MNZM – you are an extraordinary woman!

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