Windsurfing, which did not emerge as a sport and a recreational activity until the latter stages of the 20th century, is a surface water sport using a windsurf board, also known as a sailboard. The board is usually between two and five metres long and is powered by a single sail. Unlike a rudder-steered sailing boat, a windsurfer is steered by the tilting and rotating of the mast and sail.

Windsurfers can perform jumps, inverted loops, spinning manoeuvres and other freestyle moves that cannot be matched by other sailing boats. Windsurfing disciplines include speed sailing, slalom, course racing, wave sailing and freestyle.

Windsurfing is possible in winds of up to 50 knots, but the ideal conditions - at least for the majority of recreational windsurfers - are in winds of between 15 and 25 knots.

In the 1970s and 1980s, windsurfers were classified as either longboards or shortboards. Longboards were usually longer than three metres, with a retractable dagger board, and were optimised for lighter winds or course racing. Shortboards were less than three metres long and were designed for planing conditions. Most modern windsurfers are derived from the shortboard design and are intended to be used primarily in planing mode, whereby the board mostly skips over the surface of the water, as opposed to cutting through it and displacing the water.

The RS:X windsurfer, which was used at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, measures 286cm in length and 93cm in width. The size of the sail is 9.5 m² for men and 8.5 m² for women. A 520cm long mast is used for the 9.5m sail and a 490cm mast is used for the 8.5m sail.

Men’s windsurfing first became an Olympic event in 1984. A women’s windsurfing discipline was added to the programme in 1992.

Bruce and Barbara Kendall, a brother and sister from New Zealand, have won five Olympic windsurfing medals between them. Bruce, who was born in 1964, won a bronze medal in 1984 before claiming a gold in 1988. Barbara, his younger sister by three years, won gold in 1992, silver in 1996 and bronze in 2000. She became a member of the International Olympic Committee in 2005.

Bruce Kendall’s performance to win gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics was suitably impressive on the water. However, he was not quite so adept on dry land. Listening to rock music on a Walkman while skateboarding, he fell off and badly grazed his hand. New Zealand team officials ordered him to keep off his skateboard until after the Olympics finished. And Barbara Kendall’s gold at the 1992 Barcelona Games may not have been, either. Seven months before the Olympics, she was thrown from a power boat, whereupon the boat’s propeller severed a tendon and fractured the scaphoid bone in her wrist.

Murray McCaig was not so fortunate in Barcelona in 1992. The day before competition began, the Canadian windsurfer was cycling in the Olympic Village when he pulled out to overtake a slow-moving bus and was hit by a police car. He suffered a broken leg and was unable to take part.

When Lee Lai-Shan, the eighth of 10 children and affectionately known as “San-San”, held off the challenge of Barbara Kendall and Italy’s Alessandra Sensini to win the 1996 women’s windsurfing Olympic title, it was the first Olympic medal of any colour that Hong Kong had ever won.

Be Number 1 athletes have won Great Britain’s only two medals in Olympic windsurfing events. Nick Dempsey secured a bronze in Athens in 2004 and Bryony Shaw did likewise at the Beijing Games in 2008.