Emirates Team New Zealand announce the shortlist of 16 sailors that will trial for the respective Youth and Women’s America’s Cup teams later this year.
The number of applications exceeded initial expectations for Elise Beavis and Josh Junior, and that didn’t make an easy process for them to manage the selections along with the selection panel.
“We received applications from 121 people in total.” said Beavis. “We were hugely impressed by the large number of experienced sailors who applied which has made our job very challenging to select the sailors to progress to the next stage. Just going through the application process has been an encouraging insight to the depth and strength of New Zealand’s sailing future across all sailing disciplines.”
The initial selection process anticipated a shortlist of 8 youth and 8 women’s candidates that would be chosen to have a week’s trial with Emirates Team New Zealand in late 2023, where the candidates will be assessed in a range of tasks and applications.
However due to the high calibre of applicants from the vast range of sailing backgrounds and cross over between youth and women’s eligibility, the youth trial has been expanded and 10 youth sailors have been invited to trial.
“We have decided to shortlist 6 non-youth women at this stage for the women’s team trial instead of 8, however following the youth trial where we have 4 additional women, we will then invite the best-performing youth female sailors to join the women’s trial.” explained Josh Junior
The sailors shortlisted and invited to trial are:
Women: (6 shortlisted)
Alexandra Maloney - 49er FX world champion and Olympic silver medallist
Erica Dawson - Tokyo Olympics Nacra- 12th + campaigning for Paris 2024
Gemma Jones - Nacra 17 Rio Olympics 2016- 4th
Jo Aleh - Olympic Gold & Silver medals in 470 class
Molly Meech - 49er FX world champion and Olympic silver medallist
Olivia Mackay - World Champion Red Bull Foiling Generation
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Youth: (10 shortlisted)
Youth males
Jacob Pye - 2023 Moth National Champion
Joshua Armit - Gold medal at the 2018 Youth Worlds in Laser class
Leo Takahashi - 49er Olympics 2020 Tokyo Olympics- 11th
Oscar Gunn - 2022 49er National Champion
Sam Robert Thomas Street - 2022 International WASZP Games Champion
Seb Menzies - 420 World Champion / 2022 Moth National Champion
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Youth females*
Annabelle Rennie-Younger - Current 470 & ILCA 6 National Champion
Celia Willison - Helm of the team currently 1st in the Women's WMRT
Serena Woodall - RNZYZ Match race youth program / 2023 69F campaign
Veerle ten Have - 2021 & 2022 Wind foiling National Champion
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* invited to youth trial, and depending on their performance, may be invited to the women’s trial
In the next step of the selection process later this year a real emphasis has to be on team work explained Elise Beavis, “The short list of talent announced today is largely based off the performance of each sailor as an individual, whereas the team trials later in the year aims to discover the best combinations to create strongest Emirates Team New Zealand Women’s and Youth teams possible.”
Therefore, a major focus of the trials will be simulator sailing. Four sailors at a time will sail the AC40 in the simulator performing the same roles as they would on the water. Trimming with buttons and toggles rather than ropes is very different to what most of these sailors have experienced so those who learn quickly during the trial week will stand out. Communication and leadership skills will also become more apparent.
Other activities such as helping shore crew members with their daily tasks and reviewing sailing data will also give the short list sailors more insight into the team and its culture. This will also give the candidates a chance to demonstrate their attitude as potential representatives of Emirates Team New Zealand.
All members of the selector panel will observe the candidates during the week. This will provide significant insight for the selection panel to discuss when selecting the final teams of five to represent Emirates New Zealand in Barcelona 2024.
The Women’s & Youth team Selection Panel are:
Josh Junior – Emirates Team New Zealand Sailor & Program Lead
Elise Beavis - Emirates Team New Zealand Performance and simulator
Kevin Shoebridge - Emirates Team New Zealand COO
Gillian Williams - RNZYS Vice Commodore
Suzanne McFadden - Award winning Sports Journalist and Founder of LockerRoom dedicated to women’s sport journalism
Polly Powrie - Olympic 470 Gold & Silver Medallist
Ray Davies - Emirates Team New Zealand Coach