This has been a great season for Australia’s Jessica Fox, who made history by winning both the C-1 and K-1 races in the first three World Cups of this season and could make more at the Slalom World Championships this week in Rio de Janeiro (BRA).
In her international career, stretching back to 2010, Fox has won 10 World Championships medals, including seven golds: three in C-1, two in K-1 and two in C-2. She’s only one behind France’s Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi, who won eight golds (and 10 total medals) from 1983-95. This is where it gets wild.
Fox-Jerusalmi is Jessica’s Fox mother, having married Richard Fox, a British canoeing star who won 10 World Championships golds from 1979-93. The couple settled in Australia, where Richard was the national coach for Canoe Slalom beginning in 1998 – when Jessica was four – and also served as a vice president of the International Canoe Federation.
So Jessica, now 24, is now in position to set the all-time record for World Championships gold medals in Canoe Slalom with two more and could tie her father for the family gold-medals record with three! And she could do it.
The top contenders from this year’s World Cup circuit and defending champions:
∙ Men’s C-1/2018 World Cup:
1. 296 Alexander Slafkovsky (SVK)
2. 282 Luka Bozic (SLO)
3. 268 Sideris Tasiadis (GER)
∙ Men’s C-1/2017 World Champs:
1. Benjamin Savsek (SLO)
2. Alexander Slafkovsky (SVK)
3. Michal Martikan (SVK)