World canoe slalom championship 2025: Olympic champ Noemie Fox 32nd in kayak cross heartbreak

It’s mad, crazy, hectic and helter skelter and kayaking’s lucky dip when it comes to winning as a heartbroken Olympic champion Noemie Fox discovered in the world kayak cross race at Penrith.

Amanda Lulham

2 min read

October 6, 2025 - 1:16PM

News Sport Network

Noemie Fox before bowing out of the kayak cross event at the world canoe slalom championships

Sport

Don't miss out on the headlines from Sport. Followed categories will be added to My News.

It’s mad, hectic and helter shelter and it’s the race Australian paddler Noemie Fox won in one of the great moments of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

But on the Penrith rapids where the world slalom championships are being raced, someone else won the race insiders call ‘the lottery’’ and it left her heartbroken.

A shattered Fox bowed out in the heats for a 32nd in the crazy race originally called boatcross and then extreme slalom before officials settled on kayak cross for its Olympic debut in Paris where Fox claimed gold.

On Saturday, four athletes at a time launched boats and bodies off a steep start ramp with a surge of speed and avoiding nosedives, before pushing, shoving, barging and underwater rolling their way down the whitewater course in a mad scramble to the finish.

Top contenders, including Fox, were sent to the sidelines in one of the most exciting “lucky dips” in the sport.

Fox finished fifth in the time trial to get the pick of the lane for her first heat but missed a gate and was sent into the repechage to fight for survival.

This she did, before bowing out in the next round, with her world championships campaign over after six long, stressful and hectic six days of racing.

Noemie Fox of Australia (right) is congratulated by sister Jessica following her run during the women’s canoe semi final. AAP/Dan Himbrechts.

“It’s just really hard to end on that disappointment and there was so much more left in the tank,’’ Fox said.

“To not express myself fully, especially in front of the home crowd, and everyone out there, is really devastating.

“Finishing with a big heart break and pretty devastated to be knocked out so early and hopefully come back stronger.’’

The Olympic kayak cross champion finished the world championships medal-less but with her reputation intact as one of the worlds top paddlers after finishing just off the podium in the kayak cross time trial (4th) and kayak teams (fifth)

Fox also made both the C1 (9th) and K1 (12th) finals at her first home world championships.

“It’s been so special and that is what makes me so upset, not being able to thank the crowd the way they supported me in Paris,’’ she said.

“It is extremely hard to walk away without stepping on that podium.”

Fox, who preferred the beach to the rapids when she was younger, did not have the same dream as her sister Jess, the greatest paddler of all time in the sport but sidelined with health issues, of going to the Olympics when she was younger.

Australian Lucien Delfour was unlucky not to medal in the kayak final. Picture: Saeed Khan/AFP).

That started much later as she grew to love the sport with Fox in Paris part of one of the great moments of the Olympic Games with her win in the new kayak cross event.

The photo of coach and mother Myriam and sister Jess embracing her and all three crying tears of joy is one of one the most mesmerising and memorable of the Games.

Penrith teenager Codie Davidson, Lucien Delfour, Tim Anderson and Ben Pope,

Davidson, Pope and Anderson all missed the afternoon heats with only Lucien Delfour advancing on.

Delfour, who was incurred a penalty in the K1 racing which deprived him of a medal, was the best placed finisher of the Australians in the kayak cross in 16th but like Fox, devastated by not advancing further.

The Australian team ended the event with two medals - both from underdogs.