Alison Young (sailor)

Alison Young (born 29 May 1987 in Wolverhampton, England) is a British sailor. She was the first British woman to be world champion in a solo Olympic dinghy class.

Life
Young was born in Wolverhampton in 1987. She started sailing on a lake in the River Severn valley when she was nine at the Trimpley Sailing Club. She would be in the crew of a GP14 dinghy before she changed to an Optimist dinghy. Her parents gave her a lot of support and they would ferry her to different clubs in the midlands so she could sail every weekend. She was named as part of the national squad in her Optimist. When she was fourteen she moved on a Toppers boat for two years until she found her home on a Laser Radial.

She competed in the Laser Radial class event at the 2012 Summer Olympics where she placed 5th.

At the 2016 Laser World Championships, she won gold in the laser radial class and in doing so became the first British woman to become world champion in a solo Olympic dinghy class. Her best World Championship performance before this was 4th in 2012.

Young was one of the favourites going into the Rio 2016 Olympics, finishing 8th overall. After the event Young revealed that she had suffered a broken ankle eight weeks prior to the Olympics but she refused to use this as an excuse for not finishing higher.

She competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics in the Women's Laser Radial class and she finished tenth. This was where she decided to retire which she announced in 2021. She said she saw the British windsurfer Emma Wilson win her bronze medal in Tokyo and she decided she should retire as it was no longer something that was a strong ambition.