Fox & Lawrence on the podium at Oceania Open Championships

The Oceania Open Championships wrapped up at Penrith Whitewater Festival with Australia’s greatest individual slalom paddler of all time, Jessica Fox (NSWIS), taking home the win in the women’s C1.

Fellow Australian Rosalyn Lawrence (NSWIS) joined her on the podium in second. Fellow NSWIS paddlers, Tim Anderson (NSWIS) and Lucien Delfour (NSWIS) finished seventh and eighth respectively in the men’s K1 final.

The gold medal and Oceania Champion title continues Fox’ unbeaten run in the boat class she won five World Cups, the overall World Cup as well as World Championships gold in last year.

The NSW Institute of Sport paddler showed her class finishing the challenging course and conditions in a time of 121.71 seconds and +6.48 seconds ahead of second placed team mate Ros Lawrence with both paddlers recording four seconds penalties. France’s 2018 World Championships team bronze medallist and former gold medallist at the Junior World Championships in Penrith in 2014, Lucie Prioux, finished third (+11.93).

“I’m happy but it was really hard” said Fox.

“That course was long, it was windy, it was really physical and I had to really dig deep because I felt quite flat before starting. There were a couple of mistakes, I had two touches on the top and it definitely wasn’t perfect.

I was a little bit surprised to see the number one next to my name, because obviously a few mistakes can cost you a lot, so I gave it everything out there,” Fox said about her run in the C1.

The gold medal wrapped up a successful two-weekend 2019 Sydney International Whitewater Festival for Fox, who also won the women’s C1 at last weekend’s Australian Open.

Adding another silver medal to her medal tally from last weekend’s women’s K1, the world-class whitewater event made for a successful return to international competition following Fox’s historic season last year when she wrote canoeing history and became the most successful individual canoe slalom paddler of all time.

Fellow Australian and former C1 World Champion Ros Lawrence added a silver medal to Australia’s medal tally, a result she was thrilled about.

“My feelings are all over the place and I’m happy to finish on a high. There were three people up after me so I knew I was with a good medal chance when I went into first crossing the finish line,” Lawrence said.

“It’s always exciting to watch the other girls and see where they end up. It is a tough course out there, we had eight ups, lots of tricky moves set by the course designers, so it was pretty exciting,” Lawrence added.