Sailing: world championship for Emma Plasschaert in the Laser
The Ostend sailor won the World Sailing Championships in the Laser Radial (ILCA 6 category). This is the second title of her career in this Olympic discipline, following her win in 2018.
This year's Sailing World Championships, which attracted more than 400 sailors representing 29 countries, took place off the coast of Mussanah in the Sultanate of Oman. This 50th event, held in Asia for the first time, featured three categories of Olympic class sailing boats.
In her category, the laser dinghy, this was a wonderful opportunity for the Belgian Emma Plasschaert to find some consolation following the huge disappointment of finishing in fourth place at the recent Tokyo Olympics.
In a competition comprising three regattas, she was able to handle the pressure until the final dénouement in the last section. Having won the same number of points in the final ranking as Polish sailor Agata Barwinska, Emma Plasschaert owed her victory purely to a higher ranking in the final regatta (third place compared with 12th for the Polish sailor).
Celebrating her second world championship title, after Aarhus (Denmark) in 2018, Emma Plasschaert humbly admitted that, "this world championship title was fairly unexpected. Sailing is a completely unpredictable sport. In Oman, we had a week without much wind. That meant the results of the different athletes fluctuated greatly. It was not until the last day that I was sure of the win."
But the Belgian is already focusing on Marseille, which will host the 2024 Olympic Games sailing events.