| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | (1991-04-04)4 April 1991 (age 34)[1] Portsmouth, England | ||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)[2] | ||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||
| Sailing career | |||||||||||||||
| Class | Laser | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Sam Meech (born 4 April 1991) is a New Zealand sailor who won a bronze medal at the2016 Summer Olympics.[3]
Meech was born inPortsmouth, England, in 1991.[2] The sailorMolly Meech is his younger sister; almost exactly two years his junior.[4] When he was three and a half years old, their parents gave up their house and the family lived on a boat for the next decade; the siblings attribute their affinity to water to this period of their lives.[5] He received his secondary education atTauranga Boys' College, where fellow Olympic sailorsJason Saunders (born 1990) andPeter Burling (born 1991) were his contemporaries.[6]
Meech finished 34th in theLaser class at the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships and won aHalberg emerging talent award in 2011.
In 2013 he won the men's Laser race at theSail for Gold competition and in 2014 he won the men's Laser competition at theEUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup. He was part of the New Zealand team that won the 2013 Youth America's Cup.[7]
Close friends Meech andAndy Maloney had an intense battle to win New Zealand's selection for the one quota spot for the2016 Summer Olympics.[8][9] Meech won a bronze medal in the2015 ISAF Sailing World Cup sailing regatta inMiami (USA) in January, and a silver medal at a later regatta inHyères (France) in April; these results won him the selection over Maloney.[10] Meech andJosh Junior made up the last two Olympic nominees of the New Zealand sailing team in May 2016.[11] Meech won a bronze medal in theLaser class; the first time that a New Zealand competitor has won an Olympic medal in this class.[8] His sister, Molly Meech, also competed for New Zealand at the 2016 Olympics in the49er FX class alongsideAlex Maloney, the sister of Andy Maloney.[4]
