Olympic Sailing 2024: Great Britain’s Emma Wilson continues to dominate Women’s Windsurfing
Emma Wilson followed up her impressive opening day on the water with another dominant display in the South of France.
While yesterday she had to deal with light winds, today she proved more than capable of adapting to the windier conditions as she picked up three valuable wins.
Reigning iQFOiL world champion Sharon Kantor also managed the unpredictable conditions well, moving Israel up to second overall with two race wins.
Italy’s Marta Maggetti held onto her place in the top three with a late surge in the Course races.
Wilson said: “It was pretty tricky. It was pretty physical, and it was really weird wind – suddenly 20 knots and then five knots. I pumped a lot, I’m pretty tired!
“There are always going to be challenges, as there were today, but I just keep trying to smile and enjoy it.
“It’s pretty cool to do so well at the Olympics. I think I just try and take it race by race and see what happens at the end of the week. I know it’s all about Friday, so I’m just trying to save energy for Friday whilst doing well now.”
Kantor said: “I felt good. It was better than yesterday, I was just trying to find my level and continue.
“The wind was really not stable, it was gusty and in the beginning we did two Slalom races and it was pretty difficult to be good in the downwind.
“But then we went back to the shore, we did three Course races. The first one was stable but the two others were gusty. Today was hard to find the focus, but if you found it you were in the front and I managed to do that.”
Maggetti said: “It was hard today. I managed to finish three races in the top five so I’m happy.
“It was a tricky day. I had just one bad race. I’m a bit tired mentally.
“I had to think a lot about the gusty wind which was really difficult. Tomorrow I think there will be a bit more wind.”
How it works:
Medals for the windsurfing (iQFOiL) will be decided by the cumulative results of the 24 athletes over 20 races. The athlete with the lowest total will rank first.
There are three race formats – the Marathon Race, Slalom and Course Racing. Because it’s a longer 60-minute race, the Marathon will be scored as two races.
Athletes will be able to discard their worst three finishing positions after they’ve completed 16 or more races.
At the end of the Opening Series, the top ten athletes will qualify for the Medal Series. Those ranked fourth to tenth compete in a Quarter-Final, with the top two reaching the Semi-Final.
They will then face the athletes that finished second and third in the Opening Series. Two will progress from the Semi-Final, joining the top overall athlete in the Final.
The three athletes in the Final are all guaranteed a medal, so the finishing order in the Final race will determine who wins what medal.