Jessica Fox wins new Paris Olympic 2024 event at world champs, extreme canoe

An exhausted Jessica Fox suffered two rare defeats at the world championships in Bratislavia on the weekend. Then she did this.

Jessica Fox has gone from one extreme to another at the most extraordinary world championships of her career.

The Olympic gold and bronze medallist shocked the canoe kayak world when she failed to make the podium in either of her pet events, the C1 and K1, on the weekend for the first time in her senior career.

But in a brilliant sign of things potentially to come at the Paris Olympics, the Penrith paddler - who has won a medal, or two, at her last three Olympics - went out and won her sport’s newest Olympic medal event – extreme canoe slalom.

Jessica Fox on her way to her historic C1 gold medal in Tokyo.

Fox said she just wanted to have some “fun” in the new event where extreme slalom competitors go head-to-head while racing in identical plastic creek boats which hurtle into the waters off a ramp 2m above the water.

Contact is allowed between boats and there is plenty of thrills and spills.

“It wasn’t my weekend in either the kayak or the canoe, so I just wanted to have fun in the extreme and it felt great to be out there,” Fox said.

Jessica Fox with her gold medal in Tokyo.

“It was exhausting, mentally as well, because I had good runs and it just comes down to centimetres and a tiny bit of precision, and it’s a huge penalty and you’re out.

“I’ve had an amazing season, and this [gold medal] is a great way to finish.”

Extreme canoe slalom will make its Olympic debut in Paris in 2024.

Fox has tested the waters in the new event on a number of occasions but has yet to confirm is she will race it in Paris.

In Tokyo she won the first gold medal for women in the C1 and a bronze in the K1 after incurring a penalty.

Read more from AMANDA LULHAM HERE

Originally published as Jessica Fox wins new Paris Olympic 2024 event at world champs, extreme canoe