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AAP
AAP
Melissa Woods

Paddler Fox targets three titles ahead of Paris Games

Australia's Jessica Fox is seeking three titles at the canoe slalom world championships in London. (PR HANDOUT IMAGE PHOTO)

Golden girl Jessica Fox is relishing a return to the scene of her first Olympic medal as she targets three titles and Paris quota spots in this week's canoe slalom world championships in London.

Fox had just turned 18 when she won a silver medal in the K1 event at the 2012 London Olympics, competing at the Lee Valley White Water Centre.

It paved the way for the now 29-year-old to become the country's greatest paddler, winning a further three Olympic medals including gold in the C1 event's debut at the 2021 Games in Tokyo.

"It feels the same - you're still in the same sort of venue, same environment and when we first arrived here we drove in and I was like, 'Oh, my gosh, I'm getting London flashbacks'," Fox told AAP.

"I have good memories here ... and we've come back a number of times for World Cup events or international races so it's one of my favourite courses for sure."

Spearheading a nine-strong Australian team including dual Olympian Lucien Delfour, Fox will line up in three events in London and is hoping to do the same in Paris with kayak cross added to the program.

It involves four competitors entering the water down a ramp at the same time, manoeuvring through eight gates and completing an 'Eskimo roll' in an allocated area

Kayak cross will be raced in London, but quota spots for the event won't be decided until next year.

Having recently won C1 gold and K1 silver at the World Cup in La Seu, Spain, Fox is expected to set the pace in London.

But new rivals have emerged since Tokyo, including 24-year-old Slovakian Eliska Mintalova.

Fox said she wanted to lay down a marker ahead of Paris, where she's expected to be a crowd favourite given her mother, Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi, won a kayak medal for France at the 1996 Olympics.

"We definitely use the world championships as our benchmark event," Fox said.

"There's also five World Cup events, which count towards the overall World Cup title, but generally, we're sort of training a little bit more through that period and then arriving at the world champs trying to be in the best possible shape and have our best result there. 

"I'm definitely coming into this looking to have a good result and put my best performance down, that's for sure."

Paris 2024 Olympic quota places will be up for grabs for the first 15 nations in the men's and women's K1 event, and the first 12 in the C1.

Fox will be competing against her younger sister Noemie. Countries are only able to send one athlete in each event to Paris.

However, Fox was hopeful Noemi could still compete, with an opportunity to add a second athlete in the kayak cross at qualification next June.

AUSTRALIAN TEAM FOR 2023 ICF CANOE SLALOM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Women: Kate Eckhardt (Tas), Jessica Fox (NSW), Noemie Fox (NSW).

Men: Tim Anderson (NSW), Kaylen Bassett (NSW), Tristan Carter (Vic), Brodie Crawford (WA), Lucien Delfour (NSW), Ben Pope (WA).

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