Kayak Singles, Slalom, Women

The seven-time individual world champion (four in C-1 and three in K-1) and two-time Olympic medallist (silver in 2012 and bronze in 2016) Jessica Fox of Australia was the pre-race favourite. Reigning Olympic champion Maialen Chourraut of Spain was making her fourth Olympic appearance (she also took bronze in 2012) and was attempting to defend her title. Reigning world champion Eva Terčelj of Slovenia was also a medal contender, but in the semi-final run she missed a gate and finished only 24th.

In both the preliminaries and semi-final, Fox dominated the field beating her rivals by a distance. The final, however, was against all expectations, with Germany’s two-time individual European champion, and the winner of the overall ICF World Cup in 2016 and 2017, Ricarda Funk capturing the gold medal with an error-free run. The 38-year-old Chourraut took the silver, making her the oldest athlete to win a women’s Olympic medal in canoe slalom. Although Fox posted the fastest time of the day, she also picked up four seconds in penalties relegating her to bronze, repeating her performance from Rio 2016. Mistakes by two other paddlers also proved costly in the hunt for medals. Italy’s Stefanie Horn deprived herself of a silver medal with a two-second penalty, while Poland’s Klaudia Zwolinska dropped from third to fifth with four seconds in penalties. Five years ago, Funk was the top athlete heading into the Rio Olympics, but failed at the final selection and missed the Games. Now she had that elusive gold medal to her credit.