Born in France and raised in Sydney’s west, Jessica Fox made her Olympic debut in canoe slalom in the 2012 London Games. Fox is now a reigning champion, having taken out gold in Tokyo, backing it up with two gold medals in Paris.
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When Jessica Fox was 16, she got a sheet of paper and drew the Olympic rings next to the words London 2012. She also wrote the ATAR [Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank] she wanted to achieve: 97.4. She tacked it onto her bedroom wall and looked at it every day. Eventually, both would come true. (Though, she would eventually get an ATAR score of 99.1 and be the dux of Blaxland High School).
In 2012, a then 18-year-old Fox would venture to her first-ever Olympic Games to compete in women’s canoe slalom. At the time, just one woman could represent Australia.
“For me to get the selection was huge – it was a dream come true,” she says. “It was just surreal; I was just happy to be at my first Olympics at 18, soak up the atmosphere, and just embrace the moment I dreamt about as a kid.”
Fox says she knew she could make the top five if she competed in her best race. A medal? It seemed a little out of reach. Fox went on to take home silver in K1.
“I thought, ‘Why didn’t I just write down London 2012 gold?”
Fox is the daughter of Richard Fox and Myriam Fox-Jerusalemi. The former raced for Great Britain and was a five-time K1 world champion, and the latter raced for France and took home a K1 bronze medal in the Atlanta 1996 Olympics. Her sister, Noemie Fox, won gold in Paris in the women’s slalom kayak cross. She’s the first-ever Olympic champion in that event. But rather than bolster her passion, coming from canoe royalty pushed Fox in the other direction.
“There were a lot of things that made me not want to do it, to begin with,” Fox says. “It was what my parents did, and it felt too close and under too much pressure – and too hard to do. But, I think what they did well was inspire us. The Olympics always inspired us. It hit me at 11 that my parents were Olympic medallists and world champions – this was something I could become if I wanted to.”
And by the age of 14, she wanted to. In 2009, Fox made her first national junior team and won four junior World Champion crowns, eight under-23 world titles and a youth Olympics gold medal. She made her Olympic debut in 2012, and in 2016, she won the bronze in K1 at the Rio Olympics. In 2020, she took out gold in women’s canoe in Tokyo and bronze in women’s kayak, but she was chasing that gold in K1. It would come in Paris: Fox took home two golds this year in women’s canoe slalom and K1.
“When I won that second gold, it was like a dream. I still pinch myself that I pulled it off. It was about expressing myself and dominating that race – what you dream about as an athlete.”
Clear goal-setting, rigorous training and nutrition are key to Fox’s success. But the champion says that to be sustainable in sport, you need another element: fun.
“I’ve kind of learned from every Olympics and every race to be the person that I am, and I think what’s important to me is keeping the fun element and enjoying what I do because otherwise, you can’t have longevity.”
Fox says the next six to 12 months are filled with work opportunities and sponsorships, but sport is always on the agenda. She is set to take on another World Cup race at the end of this year, and next year, the World Championships will take place in her hometown, Penrith.
“I hope we can leverage these amazing Olympics to get more kids involved in the sport and more people to the venue supporting us.” She’ll definitely be at the LA Olympics, but Brisbane? “It’s too early to say, but it will be an exciting time for sport in Australia.”
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