Britain’s windfoilers claimed two silver medals at the iQFOiL European Championships as Islay Watson and Finn Hawkins both stepped on to the podium in Marseille.
Scotland’s Watson retained her European silver medal in a stop-start event in what is set to be the Paris 2024 Olympic waters in the south of France.
Watson entered the medal race in second place by finishing in the top eight of a shortened qualifying, due to the lack of stable wind, and was joined by teammate Saskia Sills who sat fifth.
“I’m tired and that was very stressful but I’m happy I managed to hold on to a medal,” said
Watson, 21 from Aviemore. “The conditions all week have been very up and down and I feel like everyone has had some good days and others which have been a bit of a nightmare, so I’m just happy to put a good regatta together and come out okay at the end.”Sills eventually finished eighth overall after encountering equipment issues in the midst of the medal race series.
U21 world champion Finn Hawkins once again bagged a medal in the new Olympic windsurfing discipline finishing 15th overall and securing himself a silver medal in same category.
Hawkins, 19, from St. Austell, said: “I’m happy to be a silver medallist. It was a really hard week of racing. I had some good results and I had some bad results, there were a lot of ups and downs. But on the whole I’m happy with how it turned out and I’m looking forward to the next event.”
Top male representative in the senior fleet Sam Sills made it into the medal race series by finishing eighth in qualifying but could only improve to sixth overall to miss out on the podium.
Andy Brown finished 17th in the men’s fleet with teammate Matt Barton closely behind in 18th. Tokyo 2020 windsurfer Tom Squires finished 39th.
In the women’s fleet Alysia Gibson was 28th.
Full results can be found here.
EDITORS NOTES
PHOTOGRAPHY
Top image credit to: Richard Aspland / British Sailing Team
Bottom image credit to: iQFOiL class association
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