WEST Vancouver windsurfer Nikola Girke will get the chance to sail in her third Olympics after earning a berth in the London 2012 Games with a tenth-place finish at the RSX World Championships held last week in Cadiz, Spain.
Girke needed to finish as the top Canadian at the regatta to earn an Olympic berth and she did so with ease, placing 37 spots ahead of the next highest Canuck surfer.
"I went to the World Championships with two goals: Qualify myself for the Olympics (and) a top 10 finish," Girke said in an email to the North Shore News. "I am super happy and proud that I was able to achieve both these goals."
Girke's top-10 finish was her best-ever at a world championships and came in intense racing conditions at what is being called one of the windiest windsurfing regattas in history. Three of the seven days of racing were cancelled with wind gusts hitting more than 50 knots.
"I have always loved strong wind, but this regatta topped it all," said Girke. "I never thought I would say that I wanted 15-plus knots less!"
While happy with her placing, Girke also said there were a number of things she could improve on to climb up the standings and even challenge for a medal at the Olympics.
"I lost too many points on fundamentals like starting and board-handling," she said. "I went swimming too many times - perhaps telling me that I need to pull the throttle back a bit at times and that I needed to shift my focus."
She'll spend the next three months training to correct those mistakes ahead of the London Games, her third Olympics. In 2004 in Athens, Girke competed in the two-person 470 sailboat category, finishing 13th. The following year she switch to RSX windsurfing, climbing up the standings in time to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics where she finished 17th.
At the 2012 Games Girke hopes to be gunning for a medal. While she finished 10th in the world championships, her ranking bumps up to seventh when you take out competitors that did not qualify for the Games - each country can only send one racer.
"This time around is the most exciting for me because I have reached a level where I won't just be competing at the Olympics, but I'm going there with a realistic shot at the podium," she said. "I know with absolute certainty that I can do better, that I can be on the podium and that in the coming months I will need to address all the areas that need fine tuning, the key things that hold me back."
