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Hi I’m Jess Fox and I’m from Penrith in New South Wales
and I compete in canoe slalom in the K1 and C1 events.
My career highlight would have to be silver at the
London Olympic Games and this year becoming world champion
in the C1 category. But I’ve also had some great success
at the junior level winning the Junior World Championships
twice, I think twice or three times and winning my first
world cup event this year and becoming the first woman
to win two gold medals at the same World Cup.
My goals are obviously to get to Rio Olympics.
It’s quite tough in my sport, only one woman can compete
at the Olympics and that’s another fight I’m fighting.
The fight for gender equity and I think it applies to,
not only my sport but, you know in society
as well getting more woman involved and obviously
Rio is in my sights. Maybe Tokyo,
I’d love to go there as well, but taking it one step at a time;
we’ve got World Championships every year and World Cup events
and I’d love to become World Champion again next year in America.
The word sacrifice gets thrown around quite a lot
and I don’t really like it because I think it’s
more about choices that we make.
You know we, we are very goal driven and really motivated
people and I think you’ve got to make the choices to
help you reach those goals so for me you know been a
nineteen year old a lot of my friends are going out
partying on the weekends and that’s never really been
of interest to me because I’ve got to get up in the
morning and train and I know that to do that I’ve got
to be fresh and ready to give it my best if I want
to make it to the Olympics or win that gold medal.
Australian Olympic sports probably struggle in
terms of funding, you know we’re well supported by
the Government; I am well supported by the AIS and NSWIS
but I think where, it’s a bit hard when we’re competing
against countries who are – they have sort of stronger,
institutionalised systems. So, through the Army,
the Police, athletes are on salaries and then integrate
the workforce after they finish.
In being competitive with them, we really do
need the support, and the Government, while they
do a great job; I guess they can’t do it all.
And that’s where we do need the help from the corporate world;
businesses; sponsors and I have been fortunate to find
some since the Olympics. But to get to,
obviously Rio Olympics and hopefully beyond,
you do really need that support.
2013 has been a really great year for women,
even twenty-twelve, you know, I think it was over fifty-five percent,
or something, of the medals won were by women
so it’s great to see and we’ve got this momentum
going towards Rio and thirteen of the seventeen world champions,
I think were women. So in terms of it being underappreciated,
I think the media has really boosted the status of
women’s sport and women are really doing a great job
on the world stage, and I guess our results are talking
even if we’re not always in the media or always in the
light as some other sports are. So hopefully,
we can get more people on our team, you know,
more sponsors, more supporters on our team,
to help us get that top five spot in Rio; that’s our goal.