Fox secures third consecutive C1 title as Florence ensures hosts end Canoe Slalom World Championships with a flourish

Jessica Fox secured her third straight women's C1 world title ©ICF

Australia’s Jessica Fox secured her third consecutive women’s C1 title and home favourite David Florence earned the men’s crown, as six gold medals were awarded on the final day of the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships here today.

Fox reinforced her status as the favourite for the women’s gold after the 21-year-old produced a fast and clean semi-final run of 1min 56.45 to finish nearly four seconds fastest than her nearest rival Nuria Vilarrubla of Spain, who had picked up a two second penalty.

It emphasised the need for the canoeists to produce a clean run in the final if they wanted to be able to end the Australian’s dominance of the event, but only Britain’s Mallory Franklin was able to achieve the feat.

However, her time would not challenge the podium positions.

When Fox readied herself at the top of the course, as the last athlete to go, she needed to beat the time of 1.58.42 set by the Czech Republic’s Katerina Hoskova to retain her title.

The Australian made light work of the task by delivering a faultless run to cross the line in 1:53.51, which bumped Hoskova down to silver, while Spain’s Vilarrubla claimed bronze in a time of 2:01.55.

There would also be a return to the top of podium for Fox after Australia claimed gold in the C1 women’s team event in a time of 2:24.04, with the Czech Republic finishing 0.88 adrift to take silver and Austria taking bronze in 3:30.72.

Hosts Britain had been hoping to end the Championships with a gold and their ambition was achieved by David Florence, who earned his second world title in event having triumphed at Prague 2013.

Britain's David Florence earned men's C1 gold in front of a home crowd ©ICF

Florence qualified for the final in fourth place but he stormed down the London 2012 Olympic course in a time of 1:34.32 to take gold ahead of Slovenia’s Benjamin Savsek, who ended just 0.04 seconds behind the home favourite.

Ryan Westley joined his team-mate on the podium after clocking 1:36.33 to win bronze, while the newly crowned champion spoke of his relief of sealing his second title in front of British fans.

“I got into some real trouble to be honest around gates five, six and seven and lost a bit of an edge, tried to recover it and didn’t quite manage,” Florence said.

“I thought I had recovered it, but was pushing the wrong way and eventually got back on line and just had to try and re-focus.

“The crowd were incredible, there was an absolute buzz.

“The rest of the course just went really well and it was enough to win by a very small margin, enough to become world champion again.”

The Czech Republic claimed the men's K1 individual and team double ©ICF

Despite their gold and bronze medals in the individual event Britain failed to secure a medal in the team competition with Slovakia defending their title in 1:46.12 having been the only nation to go clear, while Germany and Slovenia rounded off the podium in times of 1:50.21 and 1:54.02 respectively.

The final individual gold of the Championships was claimed by the Czech Republic’s Jiri Prskavec after he completed the course in a time of 1:28.99 to seal his first K1 men’s world title.

He had been forced to fend off the challenge of Poland’s Mateusz Polaczyk, who finished 0.44 seconds behind the winner, with the United States’ Michal Smolden winning bronze in 1:32.01.

Prskavec also claimed gold in the K1 men’s team competition as they crossed in 1:44.19 and they were followed by Slovakia and Britain, who finished in times of 1:44.38 and 1:46.38 to complete podium positions.