| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | 7 April 1999 Nottingham, United Kingdom | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Class(es) | RS:X, IQFOiL, Techno 293 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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| Updated on 3 February 2024. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Emma Wilson (born 7 April 1999) is a British windsurfer who won a bronze medal in the RS:X event at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. She won the RS:X events at the Youth Sailing World Championships in 2016 and 2017, and won medals at the 2018 and 2019 RS:X European Championships, and the 2022 and 2023 IQFoil European Championships.
Emma Wilson was born on 7 April 1999 in Nottingham.[1] She grew up in Christchurch, Dorset.[1][2] She is the daughter of Penny Wilson (née Way),[3] who competed at the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics.[2][4] Her older brother Dan is also a professional sailor.[3] When she was younger, Wilson played hockey at regional level in addition to sailing.[3]
Wilson has trained alongside Bryony Shaw, who won bronze at the 2008 Summer Olympics.[1][4] Aged 12, she won the U15 Techno 293 World Championships,[1][5] and the U15 RS:X event.[5] In 2015, she came second at the RS:X event at the Youth Sailing World Championships.[1][6] She later won the event in 2016,[1][7] and 2017.[1][8] She won the 2017/18 UK Windsurfing Association Windsurfer of the Year award.[9]
At the 2018 Sailing World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, Wilson won the opening RS:X race by over a minute.[10] She eventually finished fourth at the event.[11] In the same year, she came 6th at the Sailing World Cup event in Enoshima,[4] and came third at the RS:X European Championships in Gdańsk, Poland.[12] She came third overall, and second European, at the 2019 RS:X European Championships in Palma de Mallorca,[13] and came fourth at the 2020 RS:X World Championships, 11 points behind third place.[14]
Wilson qualified to compete in the RS:X event at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.[2][11][15] After the Olympics were postponed from 2020 to 2021, British Sailing confirmed that their squad selection were unchanged, and so Wilson was still selected for the Games.[16] She finished fourth in the Olympic test event in 2019.[11][15]
At the Games, Wilson finished first, second and fourth in the three races on the second day, finishing the day second overall, tied on points with leader Charline Picon.[17] On the third day of racing at the Games, Wilson won two of the three races, and moved into first place overall.[18] After the fourth and final day of heats, Wilson was second behind China's Lu Yunxiu.[19] She eventually finished third in the event.[20]
In 2022, Wilson came second at the IQFoil European Championships, her first major event in the iQFoil class.[21] She won the 2023 Trofeo Princesa Sofía event,[22] and came third at the 2023 IQFoil European Championships.[23]
