Paris (AFP)

Four months before the Tokyo Games, Olympic champion Charline Picon demonstrated her N.1 status by winning a fifth European title in windsurfing on Saturday in Vilamoura (Portugal).

On the stretch of water in southern Portugal, which jointly hosted the European Windsurfing Championship (RS: X) and the 470 World Championship (double-handed dinghy), Picon sent a strong message to his opponents .

"When you win duels with the girls, I gain confidence and they, less. It is an interesting position to seek before the Games", explains the windsurfer, joined by AFP.

"They will want to progress to come and get me, they won't have to fall asleep. But that's okay, I'm not going to fall asleep!", Launches the champion, who said she felt "a beautiful little emotion when crossing the finish line ":" I'm really going to get that one (the gold medal)! ".

Saturday, in "not easy" conditions due to the wind, the 36-year-old Rochelaise dominated her biggest rivals for the Olympic title.

She relegated to second place the 2020 world champion, the Dutch Lilian De Geus, of which she was the runner-up during the World Championships in 2020 and 2018.

- 'Soothed' -

The only thing missing was the Chinese Yunxiu Lu, world champion in 2019, for the + Olympic + field to be complete.

"We haven't seen her since August 2019, we hope to see her in April at the World Championship. She's the big question mark. I don't think she took any advance on us ", notes Picon.

With its performance at Euro-2021, the Habs struck again, having been the best in the European Championship last November on the same stretch of water.

The five-time world medalist (including gold in 2014) and seven-time European medalist, who runs from morning to night on adrenaline - "I'm on perf!"

- leaves Portugal "a little calmed down".

"I'm going to have a good week more relaxed, I'm going to take advantage of my practice (physiotherapist) to release the pressure a little, and get back to work fairly quickly", indicates the sportswoman, mother of a 3-year-old girl and half.

Picon is preparing for his next event, the World Championship in Cadiz (Spain), from April 23 to 27.

In Vilamoura, Picon was the only medalist of the France team, which had aligned its qualifiers for the Olympics in RS: X and in 470.

On the World Cup in 470, the female pair Camille Lecointre / Aloïse Retornaz, medalist at the 2019 Worlds, finished Saturday at the foot of the podium while on the male side, the 2018 world champions Kévin Péponnet and Jérémie Mion finished ninth.

On the men's windsurfing Euro, Thomas Goyard finished sixteenth.

For the Tokyo Games, France managed to qualify in nine of the ten categories.

There remains a quota chance for the last category, the Finn (only male solo dinghy), in Porto (Portugal) from May 8 to 13.

© 2021 AFP