Windsurfer (iQFOiL), Women

For 2024, the iQFoil replaced the Neil Pryde RS:X board, which had been in use since the 2008 Olympics. The iQFoil was first used at the 2021 World Championships, won by France’s Hélène Noesmoen, who was making her Olympic début in 2024. The 2024 Olympic Regatta consisted of up to 18 first-round races involving 24 entrants from 24 countries. The leader after round one progressed directly to the final race, while the second and third placed by-passed the quarter-final to go straight into the semi-final. Due to the poor wind conditions, races 15-18 were cancelled and the competition lasted just five days instead of six.

Despite never winning a World, European, or Olympic title, the 2016 and 2017 Youth World Champion Emma Wilson of Great Britain was one of the favorites for the women’s title at Marseille. The bronze medal winner at Tokyo 2020, she won bronze and silver respectively at the two iQFoil World Championships leading up the Paris Games, and had enjoyed a consistent season prior to the Marseille Regatta. Israel had produced some outstanding women’s windsurfers in recent years, and the 2024 World Champion Sharon Kantor was their representative at the Paris Olympics and was a favorite for a medal, as was 2022 World Champion Marta Maggetti of Italy, who was fourth at Tokyo 2020.

Nobody would have backed against Wilson winning gold after the opening series of 14 races in round one, where she showed her dominance and versatility. The British girl won eight races and never finished below third place, other than race five (when she was 17th). She went straight through to the final. Going directly to the semi-final was Kantor, who moved into second place after race five, and she remained there for the rest of the opening round. Maggetti finished third and went straight into the semi-final, where they were eventually joined by Yan Zheng of China and Peru’s María Belén Bazo, who finished first and second, respectively, in the quarter-final. It was Kantor and Maggetti, however, who went through to join Wilson in the final race.

In the final, Wilson led Kantor at the first and second mark, but Maggetti was in the lead at mark three and held on to it to win by six seconds from Kantor, with Wilson trailing in last place after having a discretionary penalty imposed on her. Despite a second successive bronze, Wilson was massively disappointed after dominating the opening round, just as she had done at the last two World Championships, when she also failed to win gold. Maggetti’s gold was the second women’s windsurfing gold for Italy (after Alessandra Sensini in 2000), as they joined China as the leading women’s nation with five medals, while Kantor’s silver was Israel’s first women’s medal.