Olympics-bound Wilson bags fourth at World Championships

CHRISTCHURCH’S Olympics-bound windsurfer Emma Wilson has finished fourth in the RS:X World Championships in Sorrento, Australia.

Wilson, who has already booked her place to the Tokyo games this year, equalled her 2018 result as she finished with 63 points in the event.

The overall winner was Netherlands’ Lilian de Geus with 48 points, while second and third were taken by France’s Charline Picon and Israel’s Noy Drihan with 51 and 52 points respectively.

Wilson started the six-day event brightly with two top-10 finishes on the first day and a victory in the second race to leave her second in the standings. She continued her good performances with four top-10 finishes in the next five races and looked set for a place on the podium.

However, she was pegged back with a scratched 20th place, 13th and 6th to finish the qualifying for the medal race.

The 20-year-old managed to claim third in the final competition. However, she fell 11 points short of third place overall.

A third in the double-points medal race would have raised Wilson onto the podium had rival Picon not been ahead of her. However, Wilson was still pleased with her performance. She said: “I didn’t have a great start to the medal race, but I worked hard to get back into it and crossed the line in third.

“Unfortunately Charline was just in front of me so I couldn’t move up onto the podium. I’m pretty happy with fourth overall, but I’ve still got lots to work on.

"A little bit more consistency is needed – two bad races over the week effectively cost me a medal. I’ll keep training hard, pushing myself and trying to improve.”