Olympic silver medallist sailor Alex Maloney has broadened her horizons - both on and off the water, with new crewmates and new career opportunities. But a third Olympics beckons, Suzanne McFadden writes.
Change. It’s a word peppering Alex Maloney’s conversation.
The 30-year-old may be back in the boat in which she won Olympic silver at Rio 2016, and gunning for Paris 2024, but she’s had a change in sailing partner.
She’s also trying her hand in a bigger boat - learning the ropes on a 26ft foiling catamaran, racing for Peter Burling and Blair Tuke’s Live Ocean Racing campaign. She’s hoping to sail for New Zealand in the first Women’s America’s Cup next year.
And a long way removed from the water, Maloney also has a Prime Minister's internship, working in change management – a career she’d like to pursue once her sailing days are done.
So it figures the former world 49er FX champion has no problem embracing all that change.
“I’m enjoying having the variety, and it makes me appreciate sailing more. It also means I’m being proactive for what’s next,” she says.
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After the disappointment of finishing 12th at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Maloney and Molly Meech - sailing partners for almost a decade – decided to go their own ways.
Maloney didn’t want to end her Olympic career on a negative note. So with the next Games cycle just three years instead of four, she decided to aim for a third shot at gold.
She considered jumping ship to a 470 two-handed dinghy for Paris: “But then Molly and I decided not to sail together and so that was off the table.
“But I still wanted to re-campaign and be a bit more assertive and enjoy it more. Looking at all my options, I genuinely thought I’d have the best podium chance back in the FX, with the short cycle and with Liv.”
Liv is Olivia Hobbs, a young sailor with impressive credentials. She’s already been a world champion – winning the 29er world title with Crystal Sun in 2018 – and trained against Maloney and Meech in the lead-up to Tokyo.
“I’d sailed with her before and I knew she had a lot of potential,” Maloney says. “The decision to stay in the FX was a little tricky, because not everyone thought it was best. But I’m glad I did it.”
Glad because they’re making it work. They were eighth at last year’s world championships, and in the past fortnight they’ve won both the national title and the Oceanbridge NZL regatta in Auckland.
Their very close rivals pushing them along? Meech and her new sailing partner, two-time Olympic medallist Jo Aleh.
“It’s been a real change, considering Molly and I sailed together for so long," says Maloney. "But it feels really fresh, and a good challenge for me to manage my expectations and manage the rate of learning without getting burnt out.”
After Tokyo, Maloney also wanted to broaden her horizons and sail on bigger boats. The opportunity came with Live Ocean Racing last year, in an all-women’s crew sailing in the ETF26 grand prix series in Europe.
The concept behind the team was to give more Kiwi yachtswomen high-speed foiling experience in the high performing multihull.
Maloney has relished the chance, and she’s returning as a regular member of the crew this year.
In their second season, Live Ocean Racing will have a mixed gender crew, with promising young sailors Seb Menzies, George Lee Rush and Serena Woodall coming aboard. Woodall, from Waiheke Island, spent a week with the crew at Foiling Week on Italy’s Lake Garda last year, helping them finish second.
The Kiwi team will again be skippered by Liv Mackay, who’s recently been two-boat testing with Emirates Team New Zealand in the lead-up to next year’s America’s Cup, and she’s the female sailor on board Burling and Tuke’s SailGP team, who’ll be racing in Lyttleton in a fortnight.
“The ETF is a really fun class,” Maloney says. “I had to consider whether sailing with Live Ocean Racing this year would mean too much time away from our Olympic campaign. But I have a gut feeling it really will help my FX sailing.”
Tuke knows it wasn't a simple decision for Maloney to return to the ETF circuit when Meech, Aleh and Olympic Nacra 17 campaigner Erica Dawson chose to focus on the road to Paris.
"I think it's cool Alex is really committed to the Olympics but she also wants to keep broadening her skills and going outside her comfort zone," he says. "Having a year behind her also gives Liv a lot of confidence that she's got someone next to her who's done it before."
Maloney is learning a lot from Mackay that she reckons she can take back to her smaller skiff sailing.
“I really respect how Liv attacks the start-line. I can learn a lot from her energy in that one minute to the start gun that I can take into my FX sailing,” Maloney says.
“I also really respect the younger sailors coming through. Their energy will be fun and it will give me a fresh perspective. I feel comfortable stepping back into the [FX] skippering role after a break and it’s making me sail better.”
Mackay is "really stoked" Maloney has made the commitment to return. "It's amazing she's prioritised it and feels like it adds a lot of value to her Olympic campaign," Mackay says. "I really enjoy our dynamic sailing and leading the team together. We both feel it's an incredible platform, where we've been given so much room to shape the campaign. It's such an exciting time for women's sailing."
It also gives Maloney the chance to work on Burling and Tuke’s passion project, Live Ocean, to improve the health of their marine “playground”.
“It’s cool they’ve put together a racing team that has both goals to perform, and goals to increase the awareness of the environment we all love. Every sailor I know cares about the ocean,” she says. “We’re so lucky to be able to travel the world and see ocean health is less than ideal in other parts of the globe, so it reminds us we could be doing a better job at home.”
Maloney is “definitely interested” in being part of the America’s Cup in Barcelona next year. “To represent New Zealand at the first Women’s America’s Cup would be epic,” she says. “I hope learning in the FX and the EFT26 will help me put my best foot forward - and be in a position with four or five other Kiwi women to win it.”
She sees change finally happening for women in the professional sailing realm, but knows the pace of change is still exasperating.
“But you can take a different attitude to it all. While it’s frustrating, you have to acknowledge it is changing for the better,” she says.
Maloney can see a future away from the water focusing on change.
When she’s not sailing overseas, she has a part-time role working with Mercy Ascot Hospitals in change management. She’s a recipient of a Prime Minister’s Scholarship Internship - a programme in its second year through High Sport New Zealand.
“Change management is quite big picture thinking and quite varied as well – it can be about paper medical records moving to electronic, new building sites or team culture shifts,” Maloney says. “I could see myself working in that area long-term, it’s quite people focused.”
She’s relieved her ‘boss’, transformation change manager Andy Worrall, is aware sailing is her priority for the next couple of years. “There’s a lot of red in the calendar where I’m not home this year,” laughs Maloney. “But this is more of an opportunity for me to learn three hours three days a week.”
Maloney has also been accepted into the Ernst & Young Women Athletes Business Network class of 2023 – a global mentoring programme to help female athletes transition to successful entrepreneurs or business leaders.
She’s the sole New Zealander in the 15-woman class, alongside Olympic skateboarder Annie Guglia, Singapore’s first Olympic rower Aisyah Rafaee, and former Dutch judo world champion Marhinde Verkerk.
Maloney’s mentor, Nancy Ngou, has similar passions – she leads organisational change at EY in Japan, and also has a master’s degree in environmental management.
“We’ve got into the discussion of what can one person do to make change," Maloney says. "She has the perspective that everyone can contribute.”
