Fox charges towards Rio Olympics with World Cup success

NSWIS kayaker Jessica Fox is charging towards the Rio Olympic Games with good form following a medal-laden weekend at the Canoe Slalom World Cup in Ivrea, Italy. 

The weekend began positively for the 2012 Olympic silver medallist as she claimed a gold medal in the non-Olympic C1 event, for which she is the reigning world champion, followed by silver in the K1. 

After qualifying third fastest for the C1 final, Fox took on the tricky Italian course for the final and ran into early trouble with two gate touches at the top end of the course. However the 21-year-old finished strongly to post the winner ahead of the United Kingdom’s Mallory Franklin. 

When the K1 competition commenced the next day, Fox was in a position to make it two from two gold medals, however the job became all the more difficult when she could no better than qualify fifth for the final. 

Despite the difficulty Fox came back for the afternoon to produce a clean run that was good enough for silver. Germany’s Ricardo Funk claimed gold with a time 0.35 seconds better than Fox’s. 

“It was a bit shaky at the start today, so I really wanted to improve on my semi,” Fox told AAP. 

“I’ve got a couple more races to get things right and then do the final tweaks before the Olympics.” 

Fox is schedule to compete in the next two world cup events as well as the Under 23 world championships before she begins her second Olympic campaign in Rio, one that she hopes can help deliver a gold medal.