Two-time Olympic medallist Jo Aleh has announced her return to top-level sailing.
The 35-year-old, who won Olympic gold in 2012 and silver in 2016 with Polly Powrie in the women's 470, has spent most of the last five years coaching, but said the draw of Olympic class sailing has remained.
She will now make a tilt for a third Olympic medal, this time teaming up with Molly Meech in the 49erFX.
Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie celebrate winning Silver in the 470W class at the Rio Olympics. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Meech is the 2016 Olympic silver medallist and a former 49erFX world champion.
Meech and Alex Maloney announced late last year they were looking for new challenges after 10 years sailing together.
"Luckily enough for me, Molly was floating around and is brave enough to come sailing with me," Aleh said. "To have someone who's been there, done that, it's going to save us a lot of time, for sure," said Aleh.
"I have a huge amount of respect for her - I think she's an amazing sailor - and to have a chance to sail with her in this campaign makes it possible."
For Meech, the partnership is a chance for her to sail with someone she looked up to as a youngster and someone she learned a lot from when emerging on the international scene. She wasn't sure she was going to continue sailing after the Tokyo Olympics but is excited about throwing herself into a new campaign.
"I decided that I wasn't quite done with sailing and also wanted to continue with the 49erFX and see what more I could achieve," she said. "Jo and I have a lot of work to do but we are pretty excited about what we are trying to do and where we want to go," said Meech
Meech was also this week named as one of 10 recipients of a new Prime Minister's athlete scholarship internship pilot programme running in 2022.
The first assignment for the new team will be next weekend's 49er and 49erFX national championships followed a week later by the Oceanbridge NZL Sailing Regatta at the Wakatere Boating Club. The pair will continue training in New Zealand before relocating to Europe in April for a large part of the northern summer.
Aleh will bring a new perspective to her sailing after a number of years coaching New Zealand's top Nacra 17 combination Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson, who were 12th at last year's Tokyo Olympics. It was during the countless hours on the water that Aleh's thoughts often returned to competitive sailing.
"I was watching last year's 49er and 49erFX nationals, coaching Micah and Erica at the time, and I was watching thinking, 'I'm sure I could do that'. I then did the 470 nationals and it just came back. It was like I had never been away. I thought, 'I can do that, I've got that in my pocket', but the appeal of a new class and having to learn everything from scratch is really what drives me."