Jan Shearer (left) with Leslie Egnot (right) at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Sailing opportunities have improved since Jan Shearer competed in the 1980s and 90s, but the former Olympian is not sure she would like to compete in today's era.
Shearer and Fiona Galloway competed for New Zealand at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul in the women's 470 Class - the first time ever that women had their own event in sailing at the Olympic Games.
Shearer then won a silver medal with Leslie Egnot at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, in the women's 470 class and competed again at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The pair finished second in the 1989 470 Class World Championships in Japan.
After working for 20 years as a mechanical design engineer, Shearer moved into a career in sports administration. The 66-year-old is currently the chief executive of New Zealand Waterpolo.
Shearer is married to fellow international yachtsman Murray Jones, a six-time America's Cup-winning sailor, and five-time New Zealand Olympian.
Their daughter, Gemma Jones, competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in sailing and was part of the inaugural Women's America's Cup in Barcelona last year as a member of the first Team New Zealand women's crew.
You had a very successful sailing partnership with Leslie Egnot - how important was it that you were compatible?
"It's critical, you need to have the same ambitions and goals and often times you just compliment each other. You kind of want one and one equalling three, where you bring out the best in each other. You have to be able to spend enormous amounts of time together too. I spent the majority of my sailing career with Leslie and it was fantastic, couldn't be better really. We are still friends now and catch up and play tennis and go biking."
What kind of financial support did you get when you were competing?
"We did quite a lot of sponsorship and fund-raising so for us it wasn't too bad but we were in the phase when it was starting to become better funded through the government. Having said that, I had a full-time job and when we won a medal I had a 22 month old baby, so you had a whole life going on outside of competing.
"Now elite sailing is a bigger part of people's lives so it makes it more challenging to transition in and out of it. If you commit, it's full-time and when you leave you're moving out of something that's consumed much of your time. Sailing can be incredibly lucrative now for men, but there's only a handful that are at the top that make the good money, then the rest not so much."
Have opportunities for female sailors improved much since you competed?
"We had a women's class for the first time at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, windsurfing was added later, there were three classes in Barcelona in 1992 and it's built from there. It's still difficult for women to actually make a career path out of it, there's the odd opportunity but it's still pretty limited. It's really difficult because you're trying to be a professional athlete in what is still basically an amateur sport for women.
"So you enter that with the prospect of potentially not making it to the Olympics because there's only one boat that goes and then you're probably going to have very little money even now with no clear longer term career path. It's not like you are well paid and you've also got limited transferable skills as well."
Would you like to have competed today's era?
"We were truly amateurs will full-time jobs, sailing and training in the evenings and weekends, whereas now it's a full-time job. For me personally I don't know if that's better or worse because it makes the stakes much higher and athlete wellness I think has probably taken a dive because of that.
"With the sheer amount of time you have to put into it now, it's almost like venture capital and you want to get properly rewarded but you have to understand that you might not make it and what does that look like and how are you going to deal with that and it's really complicated. In my day I just found it was so enjoyable and there was nothing else I would rather have done and it just wasn't a problem. Obviously we had success so that paid off but it's different now because your are putting all your eggs in one basket.
"My son sailed as well and when he was around 18 he basically made a conscious decision that he did not want to invest his time in trying to go to the Olympics because the risk-reward was too great. So he focussed on university, he became a software engineer. Athletes now have to make a bigger decision than what we did because it's more impactful on their lives.
"I think that parents of budding athletes need to understand that that's the environment you are entering now and it's optional. New Zealand does so well in smaller sports but there's only a few that come out and can make a longer-term living out of it so you really have to have something else up your sleeve."
You moved into sports administration after a career as a mechanical design engineer - how did that come about?
"Since I'd had kids, I had worked part-time as an engineer up until 2004 when we shifted to Europe, where we were mostly in Valencia for the America's Cup because my husband was with Alinghi so we lived there for five years. When we came back to New Zealand I didn't really want to go back to engineering.
"I had done a masters in management and done my dissertation on youth sport and the factors that contribute to becoming an elite athlete so I combined that with my sports and campaigning experience and logistical skills from managing projects through engineering.
"It took me a little while to decide what roles in the sport sector might suit my skills and then I ended up with Tennis NZ and was the head of performance there from 2012 and then I went to Snow Sports NZ for three years as CEO, before coming to Water Polo. Alongside that I had quite a few governance roles as well."
What has it been like working for three very different National Sport Organisations?
"The people are different and there's different cultures and environments in each sport. I've heard other people who have shifted sports and they've gone to work for another sport and they've gone 'no, they're not my tribe, I can't relate to those people' but I haven't found that myself. It's been really interesting and I've never wanted to work in yachting because that was my sport and I have such great memories as an athlete. And you have so much experience and knowledge, it's almost better to come in with a clean slate and then you can be objective and you don't know the people and know what's gone before or carry any agenda so I think that's quite healthy."
You joined NZ Water Polo four year's ago at the tail end of Covid - has it been challenging?
"Obviously there had been very little activity domestically and internationally for any athlete, which meant almost starting from nothing. It's been a bit of a rebuild over the last four years that I've been there. We're in pretty good shape now, we've put a lot of systems and processes in place.
"After Covid there was a downturn and a need to cut costs and recover from the impact of Covid because one of the main income streams was our domestic competitions and that hadn't been happening for two years so there was a need to dial back the expenses. So we've rebuilt now, we're not back to the same staffing level pre-Covid but pretty close.
"We have a small office in Auckland ...the sport in New Zealand is probably a bit immature in terms of its development particularly around high performance let's say, which has been good in some ways because you are starting with a bit of a clean slate."
Do you still get out on the water?
"No, not really. I loved all the sailing that I did but it was when I was competitive. Now I'm obviously not able to do that at that level so I do other things. I'm a really keen skier, we ski and go hiking, play golf, all that kind of recreational stuff."
