Windsurfing is a wind propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the Californian aerospace and surf culture. Windsurfing gained a popular following across Europe and North America by the late 1970s and had achieved significant global popularity by the 1980s. Windsurfing became an Olympic sport in 1984.
Lee Lai Shan is a former world champion and Olympic gold medal-winning professional windsurfer from Hong Kong. She was the first athlete to win an Olympic medal representing Hong Kong.
Gal Fridman is an Israeli windsurfer and Israel's first Olympic gold medalist. Fridman won a Bronze Medal in the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, and his gold medal in the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics. He is the first of two Israelis athlete to win two Olympic Medals, and the first Olympic Gold medalist in Israeli history. His first name, Gal, means "wave" in Hebrew.
João Filipe Gaspar Rodrigues is a Portuguese windsurfer. He competed in every Summer Olympic Games from 1992 to 2016 with the best result of sixth place in 2004.
Nicholas Charles Dempsey is a British windsurfer, who lives in Poole, Dorset. He became the first man to win three Olympics medals in windsurfing when he won silver in the 2016 Rio Olympics, adding to a silver won in the 2012 London Olympics, and a bronze from the 2004 Athens Olympics. He is also twice world champion, winning gold in 2009 and 2013.
Marina Alabau Neira is a Spanish sailor. She has won a gold medal, one silver medal in 2006 and two bronze medals at the Windsurfing World Championships. She also won five gold medals at the European Championships. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, she won the gold medal in the RS:X competition.
Barbara Anne Kendall is a former boardsailor from New Zealand. She competed at five Summer Olympic Games and won gold, silver and bronze medals.
Wang Aichen is a male Chinese windsurfer. He competed for Team China at the 2008 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Olympics in the men's RS-X class.
Shahar Tzuberi is an Israeli windsurfer and Olympic bronze medalist, surfing in the "Neil Pryde" RS:X discipline. He is a nephew of Gad Tsobari, the 1972 Olympic wrestler who escaped from Arab terrorists during the Munich massacre. He is a three-time Olympian.
Nimrod Mashiah is an Israeli windsurfer.
RS:X is a windsurfing class selected by the ISAF to replace the Mistral One Design Class for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The discipline has similarities to Formula Windsurfing - mainly in that the equipment used was designed to allow windsurfing in low and moderate wind conditions with good performance.
Maayan Davidovich is an Israeli Olympic windsurfer.
Zofia Teresa Noceti-Klepacka is a Polish windsurfer and a political far-right media personality.
Lee (Lee-El) Korzits is an Israeli windsurfer who has won four Windsurfing World Championships titles. She competed in the 2004 Olympics, finishing 13th, and at the 2012 Olympics, finishing 6th.
Johannes Ahun is a former Estonian windsurfer, who specialized in Neil Pryde RS:X discipline. He is also a two-time Olympic sailor, and is currently ranked no. 45 in the world for his class by the International Sailing Federation. He quit professional sports career in 2015 and went to study sound engineering at University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy. From 2017 he's been a musician in Estonian folktronica band OOPUS.
Charline Picon is a French windsurfer who specialized in the Neil Pryde RS:X class. She captured two bronze medals in her respective class at the Windsurfing World Championships, and an Olympic title at the 2016 Summer Olympics after attaining a top ten finish at the 2012 Summer Olympics. As of September 2014, Picon is ranked as one of the top ten sailors in the world for the sailboard class by the International Sailing Federation, following her successes at the European and World Championships and at the Sailing World Cup series.
Caroll-Ann Rosenberg née Alie is a retired Olympian in windsurfing. Apart from her Olympic appearances, Alie won gold at the 1995 Pan American Games and silver at the 1999 Pan American Games. She was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.
Emma Wilson 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.
Helen E. "Penny" Wilson is a British former windsurfer, who won multiple Windsurfing World Championships events. She competed at the 1992 Summer Olympics coming 6th and the 1996 Summer Olympics coming 7th.
Hélène Noesmoen is a French windsurfer who competes in the IQFoil class. She won the women's events at the 2021 IQFoil World Championships and the 2020, 2021 and 2022 IQFoil European Championships. Noesmoen also won the RS:X event at the 2018 Sailing World Cup event in Miami, and multiple junior world championships.
Great Britain 
