We are excited excited to announce that Emily Bugeja qualified to represent Canada at the Olympic Games this summer in formula kite foiling, a new sailing class and introduction of hydrofoiling water sports to Olympics.

Emily Bugeja has been sailing since she was 8 years old, starting at a summer camp at West Vancouver Yacht Club. Her racing career began in the Optimist in 2010 as a part of the North Shore Sailing Team, and later the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club Race Team. After aging out of the Optimist, Emily sailed 29er where she represented Canada at the 2016 Youth Worlds in Auckland, New Zealand and placed 17th, and BC at the Canada Games where she won a bronze medal.

After a brief hiatus from racing where she studied Electrical Engineering at Queen’s University, Emily learned to kite foil and is back with the dream of representing Canada at the 2024 Olympic Games. After starting to race in Kingston, ON during 2021, she continued training hard throughout 2022, eventually qualifying for the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, where she earned a quota spot for Canada at the 2024 Olympics.

She said that “in 2014, I set a goal that in exactly 10 years, I would represent Canada at the 2024 Olympic Games. Fresh out of Optis and never quite cracking the mid fleet at any event I had attended so far, it felt like I had no business setting my sights so high. At the time, kiteboard racing as it is today was in its early days, and not even I could imagine that I would realize my goal through that hydrofoiling sailing discipline. I’m more motivated than ever to continue training hard to perform at the games, and for whatever lies beyond it.”

If you would like to support her foiling journey, you can make a tax deductible donation below at https://www.windathletes.ca/athletes/emily-bugeja.

Any amount helps, and will go towards travel, equipment, coaching, and registration fees.

For more information on Canadian wind athletes visit https://www.windathletes.ca/

For more information on Formula Kite Class visit https://www.formulakite.org