Wilson follows in mother’s wake on her quest to win windsurfing world crown
Youngest member of GB Olympic sailing team is from top-level pedigree, writes Jeremy Wilson
It is when the conversation turns to her first memories of being out on the water that Emma Wilson’s face breaks into the broadest of smiles. Her mother, renowned in the sailing world by her maiden name Penny Way, says that she “wasn’t very good at putting them in childcare” and would instead simply place Emma and her brother, Dan, in a rubber dinghy off the back of her windsurfing board.
The Wilson family were such a familiar sight in the water near Christchurch that the road which leads to the windsurfing club in nearby Mudeford Bay has been named Penny Way. “I still remember it very clearly – it was just so much fun,” Emma says. “She would put us in a ringo and tie it to her board. I was light and it felt really fast. I must have been about seven.
“We had some crashes – I still have some big crashes. I enjoy falling in. We had a topper as well and I just remember going out with Dan and capsizing all the time. The harbour was so shallow you could just stand up everywhere. Summers were great.”
Penny was world windsurfing champion in 1986, 1990 and 1991 and represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 and in Atlanta in 1996.
This weekend, exactly three decades after her mother’s World Championship win in Texas, Emma could follow in her footsteps. She was fourth as of last night ahead of the final sequence of World Championship races in Australia.
Wilson has also already been selected for the Tokyo Olympics and, at the age of 20, is both the youngest member of Team GB’S sailing team and a genuine medal prospect.
Any assumption, though, that she was always destined for this particular sporting path would be misguided. The gold medalwinning performances of Kelly Holmes in Athens in 2004, when Wilson was just five, provided particular inspiration and she especially enjoyed tennis, football and hockey, which she played to a regional level, before deciding to focus on windsurfing when she was 14. Brother Dan is 18 months older and also an international windsurfer.
“We lived on the sea, and we were fighting each other to get better,” she says. “I think it really
‘Mum would put us in a ringo and tie it to her board. It was fun’
helped to do lots of different sports. I tried to get in all the sports teams at school above my age group so that I could miss class.
“My mum was, ‘Do as many sports as you can’. She didn’t push me into anything but it was easier where we were living to focus on sailing and it has been really good to have someone who understands it.”
We meet in Japan’s Hayama Marina, where the British sailing team have been based for many months over recent years in preparation for the Olympic racing in nearby Enoshima Bay. Wilson enjoys the tranquil surroundings and opportunity to focus on conditions which produce an unusually common combination of low winds and big waves.
After multiple world titles as a precocious and hugely successful junior, one further notable aspect of her journey is that she is now coached by Barrie Edgington. He is preparing this summer for his eighth Olympic Games and was her mother’s team-mate in 1992 and then coach in 1996.
Edgington says that they share several notable characteristics. “Different individuals but they are both very single-minded – you see that desire, sense of detail and ambition,” he says. “Emma has inherited some good traits off mum. She is a real student of the sport – of all the people I have worked with, I would say that she is the most determined.”
That focus and determination is crucial in the context of windsurfing competitions which involve three races of around 30 minutes every day for almost a week. “It’s really quite unique in sporting terms – like doing a 10,000-metres race three times a day,” Edgington says.
Penny generally travels with Emma to her competitions, and will also visit during training camps, and it is easy to sense how their close mother-daughter relationship helps to ease the pressure of elite competition.
“We get on really well, so it’s nice,” Wilson says. “We sometimes just have fun going surfing or exploring. I could just train, train, train, because you learn something different every time you go out. I try to push to the limit, so it’s good to have a mental break.”
She then laughs as she recalls a “massive crash” the previous week. “It was really windy. I went up, catapulted around the front. The only thing that is painful is when you land on the mast, but I landed on the sail. It was fun ... worth the crash. I just want to keep enjoying it.”