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Jo Aleh

Jo Aleh
Personal information
Nickname(s) Jox
Nationality New Zealand
Born (1986-05-15) 15 May 1986 (age 30)
Auckland, New Zealand
Height 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Weight 127 lb (58 kg)
Sailing career
Class(es) Women's 470 dinghy
Club RNZYS, Takapuna Boating Club, Auckland, New Zealand
Coach Nathan Handley

Joanna (Jo) Ayela Aleh, MNZM (born 15 May 1986) is a New Zealand sailor. She is a national champion, a former world champion, and an Olympic gold medallist.

Aleh competes in the two-woman 470 dinghy, a double-handed monohull planing dinghy with a centreboard, Bermuda rig, centre sheeting and length overall of 4.70 metres.

Aleh is Jewish, and was born in Auckland, daughter of Israeli father Shuki Shukrun and British-born mother Daniella Aleh, a former Israeli soldier. She lives in Auckland where she began a degree in Mechanical Engineering at University of Auckland. But then sailing got in the way, and she moved on to AUT to continue her engineering degree, but then found it too hard to fit sailing and university, so she is currently studying a Bachelor of Information Science at Massey University extramurally.

Aleh was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2013 New Year's Honours, for her services to sailing.

Just before her ninth birthday, Aleh was impressed by the New Zealand victory in the 1995 America's Cup, and asked her father if she could learn to sail. She did a learn to sail course at the Ponsonby Cruising Club and with the help of her extended family a small sailing dinghy was purchased. She began her competitive career at the age of 11 in an Optimist. Her first competition event was the Auckland Anniversary Regatta, for Kohimarama YC, in 1998.

She then made sailing history as the first female to win the Tanner Cup since its inception in 1945. This highly contested interprovincial competition is sailed in P-class yachts.


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