THE TALENTED MISS FOX
Two days is all that separates one of Jessica Fox’s most heartbreaking junctures from the greatest moment of her career. It was July 27, 2021, and Jess had just crossed the finish line in the women’s canoe slalom K1 final at the Tokyo Olympics.
Even though she had the fastest run of any of the athletes in the event, she was hit with two two-second time penalties, which meant that she fell to third place: 1.23 seconds behind gold medallist Ricarda Funk and 0.10 seconds behind silver medallist Maialen Chorraut.
The second time penalty for touching a gate in the run had cost Jess the gold medal. Her body hunched over her kayak as she dropped her head into her hands. For the 27-year-old, who had been chasing a gold medal since she competed at her first Olympics in 2012, it was devastating.
“But I had to reframe it,” Jess says. “Rather than saying, ‘I should have won the gold. I made that mistake and I lost,’ [it became] ‘I’ve won a third Olympic medal.
