From family kitchen chats to FIFA World Cup pitches, how history-making canoeist Jessica Fox is honouring the sports sisterhood
A heritage of female trailblazers has given the Australian canoeist ample motivation to fight for gender parity. Find out how Fox is supporting female athletes in and out of the water after becoming the first ever Olympic champion in women's C1 canoe slalom.
Cheers erupted from the packed Stadium Australia ahead of the local team’s 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup clash against Denmark to welcome an athlete who had just walked out onto the pitch.
She was not a football player. In fact, none of her accomplishments have come on dry land, but judging by the enthusiasm of the soccer fans in the stands, one would think they had witnessed the arrival of Pele or Maradona.
The cheers were meant for the most decorated male or female canoe slalom paddler of all time, Jessica Fox – an Olympic champion, four-time Olympic medallist and 12-time world champion.
“Just buzzing! So epic to be named stadium captain & bring out the adidas Oceaunz ball tonight,” Fox wrote on her Instagram later that night. “Seeing the Matildas in action in front of 75,000 people was incredible. These girls and this FIFA Women's World Cup is truly something special.”
While Fox herself competes in a mostly individual sport, she has managed to create a sense of sisterhood even there.
The daughter of canoe slalom pioneer Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi, Fox has joined her mothers's fight for women in sport and continues to set new benchmarks in her events. Olympics.com looked closer at the history-maker's journey and how she is helping to bring gender parity into the sport.
Sister act: Jessica and Noemie Fox
Jessica Fox is used to making history for women in sport.
In 2012 she became the youngest woman to win a medal in canoe slalom at an Olympic Games when she took silver at London 2012. Two years later she became the first woman to win K1 and C1 world titles in the same year, and in 2021, at Tokyo 2020, she was the first woman to win gold at an Olympic C1 event.
Despite the numerous accolades spanning more than a decade at the top level of the sport, there was still something extra special about the K1 team title that Fox won at the 2023 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships in September 2023.
The Olympic champion joined forces with her younger sister Noemie Fox and Kate Eckhardt to become the first Australian trio to win the kayak team event at a world championships. The sisters also won the canoe team event four years ago, together with teammate Ros Lawrence.
“We all work together, push each other, learn from each other, and inspire each other. To be rewarded together like this is really special,” Noemie Fox told The Guardian after the race.
“We’ve been on many teams together, and I remember seeing Kate and Noemie starting the sport and growing up together and going through the junior ranks and Under 23s, so now to stand on the top of the podium together as K1 team women’s world champions is just incredible," her older sister added. "I am so proud of them and to share this together.”
In addition to sharing the gold, there is another important feature that these athletes have in common. All three have had Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi - an Olympic bronze medallist and Jessica and Noemie’s mother - as a coach since their early days in the sport.
A heritage of female trailblazers
As far as a mother’s lessons to her daughters go, Fox-Jerusalmi’s example is a masterclass.
The canoe slalom athlete continued to train after giving birth to her first child, Jessica. The only difference to her schedule came in the form of an additional walk or run with a baby stroller to follow on the whitewater paddling.
The effort paid off as Fox-Jerusalmi won K1 bronze for France at Atlanta 1996, adding to the family's large medal collection that also includes 10 world titles from Fox’s British Olympian father Richard.
When Jessica and Noemi were old enough to pick up canoe, their mother stepped up to be the coach.
Along with a rundown of canoeing techniques, having Fox-Jerusalmi as their coach came with a hefty dose of female empowerment.
"She’s been an amazing role model for me, but also for a lot of women in my sport and a lot of athletes [and] coaches, because she’s a female coach and there are not many female coaches around," Fox said of her mother who was named Coach of the Year at the 2018 AIS Sport Performance Awards.
"In the 90s it wasn’t all that common to be an athlete, have a baby and then come back to the highest level and win an Olympic medal, so it really inspired a lot of people. It inspired me a lot. And as a coach she’s always really open to helping other women, to really mentoring, to cement the place of women in elite sport."
While it is not always easy to balance the mother-daughter and coach-athlete relationships, the Fox women have learned to make the most of their unique situation.
That included a few strategy brainstorms - not over Zoom, but over tea - during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"My mum is my coach, so it's pretty easy to see her in the kitchen and we have a chat," Fox told ESPN ahead of Tokyo 2020.
The Fox way: Advocating for gender parity
Having an Olympic medallist as a parent can be daunting for a young athlete. If that parent also happens to be a well-known trailblazer in the sport, the pressure gets even greater.
Jessica Fox, however, was not only unfazed by the extra spotlight, but used it as motivation to blaze her own path.
Up until Tokyo 2020 only women’s kayak was included in the Olympic canoe slalom programme. Fox was one of the advocates who helped to bring gender parity into the sport.
"It's a big win for us to be on the start line in Tokyo," Fox said after women’s canoe was added to the Olympic programme. "It was a long time coming and it was a very important step and a very necessary step to take."
Having won the long-fought battle, Fox was determined to make the most of the opportunity.
She had fallen short of Olympic gold in the K1 final at Tokyo 2020 despite having the fastest run in the event. Falling to third place after getting hit with two time penalties, a heartbroken Fox lowered her head into her hands near the finish line.
Two days later she returned to the Kasai Canoe Slalom Centre with new resolve.
“Those 48 hours after the kayak and in the lead up to the C1, any time I had a negative thought come into my head, I just wrote it down and countered it by saying, ‘Well, no, actually I’ve prepared extremely well',” Fox told Australian Women’s Health. “So much emotional and mental energy went into it.
"In the end, I really tried to think about how we all have disappointments, but tomorrow is a new day and a new opportunity. I deserve to do my best race. It’s not that I deserve to win. It’s just that I deserve to do my best race.”
Her best race – a perfect run with no penalties - turned out worthy of the coveted gold medal Fox has been chasing since making her Olympic debut in 2012.
It was a moment of gender parity for canoe slalom and, fittingly, one of its greatest athletes made history as the first woman to win C1 gold at the Olympics. Fox finished with a three-second lead and cried as she received congratulations from her mother and sister.
While the Fox family has made big strides for female representation in the sport, as a recent Instagram post from the Olympic champion showed, there is still a way to go.
Fox posted a short video of herself in April in which she explains the paddling position in a canoe. The post has since gone viral for the many comments from male followers correcting her terminology and calling the boat in the video a kayak.
Fox replied in her characteristically patient and polite manner, while a slew of followers gave her a sisterly nod of approval for setting the record straight.
"Last time I remembered YOU were the Olympic champion," wrote a mother-of-two. "Don't sweat it girl, you know more than us."