Canoe slalom world championships: Jess Fox wins extreme gold, becomes favourite for new Olympic event
Not even Emma McKeon or Anna Meares can rival the individual record of Jess Fox, after her latest world title. So is she our best ever athlete? See for yourself.
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Jess Fox’s latest world title win has put her in rare air as one of the most celebrated Australian athletes of all time.
Fox sealed her ninth individual world crown with a win in the extreme slalom event at the world championships in Germany on Monday morning (AEST), adding to the pair of silver medals she picked up in regulation canoe and kayak competition on the Augsburg course.
The victory gave Fox nine individual world titles in a stellar 10-year international career.
Fox has 12 gold medals from world championships since breaking through in Prague with a pair of titles in the canoe and C1 teams event.
But her nine individual titles, in the canoe, kayak and extreme slalom events, rank her among Australia’s best ever athletes.
Emma McKeon became our most decorated Olympian in Tokyo last year and will leave Birmingham as the most successful Commonwealth Games athlete of all time.
But Fox has one – or actually nine – over the swimming ace, who does not yet have an individual world title to her name.
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Even the peerless Anna Meares – the most decorated track cyclist of all time when she won her 11th gold at the 2015 world championships - has “only” eight individual titles to her name when her three team sprint medals are deducted.
Ian Thorpe also has 11 golds from longcourse world championship campaigns.
But he had five relay golds, leaving him with six individual world gongs, while three of Grant Hackett’s 10 world championship golds came in relays.
Surfers Steph Gilmore and Layne Beachley both have seven world surfing titles, a record for the women, while Mark Richards has four world surf crowns.
Already an Olympic champion after she snared gold in the C1 whitewater event in Tokyo, Fox is favoured to add to her tally of four Games medals when the extreme slalom is added to the program in Paris in 2024.
For now though, she can enjoy being a few medals up on 1985 world champion and father Richard Fox, who won his title at the same German venue as she celebrated her latest success.
Fantastic Fox’s extreme road to more Olympic glory
Jess Fox has added to her incredible world championship tally while announcing herself as the woman to beat to Olympic gold in Paris when the new discipline of extreme slalom is added to the whitewater program for the 2024 Games.
Fox sealed a ninth world title when she won the extreme title, a race in which paddlers drop into the water from a 2m platform and are pitted against each other in heats of four, having to negotiate upstream and downstream gates as well as complete an eskimo roll.
Fox defended her 2021 world title in the event at Augsburg, Germany, winning on the same course at which her father became a world champion in 1985 and becoming an instant favourite to win the inaugural Games title in Paris.
“It’s been an amazing weekend here in Augsburg and I can’t quite believe I managed to pull that off in extreme and to back up the world title,” Fox said.
“It’s always such a battle out there in extreme but the crowd was amazing. You just have to keep taking it round by round and I guess I was carried by the crowd which was amazing.”
The Olympic canoe champion, Fox finished the world championships with three medals — gold in the extreme and a pair of silvers in the traditional kayak and canoe runs.
After finishing behind Germany’s Ricarda Funk in the kayak earlier in the weekend, Fox was again relegated by a home favourite, finishing second to Andrea Herzog, with Great Britain’s Mallory Franklin taking bronze.
The same trio filled the podium positions at the Tokyo Games last year when Fox took gold ahead of Franklin and Herzog but Fox’s sluggish start cost her despite a charging finish.
The 28-year-old was thrilled with her weekend’s work though.
“It’s been just incredible to race here, there was so much atmosphere and I’m so pleased to come away with three medals.” Fox said.
“For the kayak and the canoe, it was always going to be really tough to beat the Germans on their home course and I wanted to give it the best shot I could.
“I’m really pleased with the way I raced and I enjoyed every second out here on the water.”
Fox’s younger sister Noemie finished eighth in the C1 final, with Tasmanian Kate Eckhardt narrowly missing the final in her first world championships.
Tim Anderson was eighth in the men’s extreme slalom.
Australia’s haul of a gold and two silver — all won by Fox — put them fourth on the medal tally.
Focus now shifts to the still-water paddling team who will take part in the world sprint titles in Halifax, Canada, from Wednesday.
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