Mahé Drysdale

Personal information

Full name

Alexander Mahé Owens Drysdale

Born

19 November 1978 (age 38)
Melbourne, Australia

Height

200 cm (6 ft 6 ¹⁄₂ in)

Weight

99 kg (218 lb; 15.6 st)

Spouse(s)

Juliette Haigh

Medal record

Men's rowing
Representing New Zealand
Olympic Games
	2012 London	Single sculls
	2016 Rio de Janeiro	Single sculls
	2008 Beijing	Single sculls
World Championships
	2005 Gifu	Single sculls
	2006 Eton	Single sculls
	2007 Munich	Single sculls
	2009 Poznań	Single sculls
	2011 Bled	Single sculls
	2010 Karapiro	Single sculls
	2014 Amsterdam	Single sculls
	2015 Aiguebelette	Single sculls

Alexander Mahé Owens Drysdale, MNZM (born 19 November 1978) is a New Zealand rower. Drysdale is the current Olympic champion and five-time World champion in the single sculls. The name Mahé comes from the largest island in the Seychelles.

Drysdale attended Tauranga Boys' College in Tauranga, New Zealand, then the University of Auckland. He began rowing at university at the age of 18. He gave up rowing to concentrate on his studies, but began rowing again after watching fellow New Zealander Rob Waddell win gold at the 2000 Olympic Games.

Drysdale is a member of the West End Rowing Club in Avondale, Auckland, New Zealand, and Tideway Scullers School, London.

Drysdale began competing at World Cup level in 2002, in the New Zealand coxless four. After the 2004 Olympic Games, in which his New Zealand crew finished fifth in the final, Drysdale switched to the single scull, winning the 2005 World Championships at Gifu, Japan, despite having broken two vertebrae in a crash with a water skier earlier in the year.

He successfully defended his title in 2006 at Dorney Lake, Eton, England, in 2007 at Munich, Germany, and again in 2009 in Poznań, Poland, holding off Britain's Alan Campbell and Czech Republic's Ondřej Synek. At the 2009 World Rowing Championships he also beat his own World Record in the single and reduced it to 6:33.35.

At his first Olympic Games, in 2004, Drysdale was part of the New Zealand coxless four team that finished fifth.

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