“Incredible performance”: Another Paris gold for Fox as Aussies narrowly miss in the pool

Australian flagbearer Jessica Fox has claimed her second gold medal of the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The 30-year-old canoeing star won the C1 event on Day 5 of the Games with a splendid run, adding to her gold in the K1.

Fox joins Betty Cuthbert as the only non-swimming Aussies to win three individual Olympic gold medals after she also won the C1 title in Tokyo in 2021.

Her father Richard, a former Olympian and current broadcaster, praised his daughter after another stellar showing following on from Sunday’s triumph.

“An amazing day and incredibly proud of Jess,” he told SEN Breakfast.

“It was an amazing run in the final. She’s backed up and followed up from Tokyo. Incredible performance.

“Sunday was a big milestone and it came on the back of that flagbearer role and the opening ceremony. You could have imagined that she was just settling for that subconsciously.

“It was a tough course and she had to back up. The final unfolded in really quite an interesting way. There was a big score that was two seconds quicker than anything in the semis which put the challenge out there.

“How would she respond? Because so many things can go wrong, and yet she managed to hold it all together. She had to dig incredibly deep to do that.”

Fox has another chance to win gold when she clashes with her younger sister Noemie in the kayak cross event.

Away from the slalom course, Australian swimmers narrowly missed out on gold medals.

Zac Stubblety-Cook claimed silver in the 200m breaststroke final, beaten by French star Leon Marchand who won a third gold of his home Games and second on Day 5 after earlier winning the 200m butterfly. (The first daily double gold since 1976).

Kyle Chalmers also settled for silver in the 100m freestyle when going down to China’s Zhanle Pan who broke the world record in swimming 46.40.

Elsewhere, Natalya Diehm claimed bronze in the BMX freestyle park event while Penny Smith also nabbed bronze in the trap shooting.

Australia’s medal tally now sits at 16 total medals with 7 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze.