Jessica Fox and Joseph Clarke avenge for missed opportunities by taking K1 golds at 2023 Worlds, as K1 Olympic quotas are given out
After runner-up finishes in 2019 and 2022, Fox reclaimed her K1 world title with the fastest run on the same course where she won her first Olympic medal, while Rio 2026 champion Clarke made a comeback statement to cap off his best season to date.
Redemtion was the word of the day for Australia's Jessica Fox and Great Britain's Rio 2016 champion Joseph Clarke as they paddled to gold in their K1 events at the 2023 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships on Saturday (23 September).
Fox returned to the top after two near-misses in the 2019 and 2022 editions where the four-time Olympic medallist was forced to settle for silver.
The Australian, who last won the individual world title in K1 in 2018, completed the fastest run at the Lee Valley White Water Center - the same course where she won her first Olympic medal in 2012 - to finish ahead of silver medallist Eliska Mintalova of Slovakia and Polish bronze medallist Klaudia Zwolinska.
Fox picked up two penalty seconds in the race, but unlike the C1 final where the same mistake dropped her from the gold medal position to bronze, her fast paddling in the K1 was enough to hold on to a 1.13-second lead.
The men's race proved equally tight with nine out of the 10 finalists going clean in their runs.
Building on his most successful season to date, Clarke crossed the line 1.94 seconds ahead of Czechia's Jiri Prskavec. It was a symbolic finish for the 30-year-old who won Great Britain's first gold medal in the event, at Rio 2016, but was left off the team for Tokyo 2020 where Prskavec took gold
Marocco's Mathis Soudi picked up the bronze in Lee Valley, which marks his first major international medal.
Road to Paris: 30 Olympic quotas secured in K1 events
The top 15 male and top 15 female canoeists secured Olympic quotas in the K1 events for their National Olympic Committees. Athletes could only earn one quota for their country and could not earn a quota in both kayak and canoe, with the canoe quotas - given out on Friday, 22 September - trumping the kayak ones.
The quotas in the women's K1 went to Austria, Brazil, Czechia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland.
In the men's K1, the quotas went to Australia, China, Czechia, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.