‘I was blocking that vision’: How Jess Fox helped her sister beat her to Olympic gold
Noémie Fox, 29, and sister Jess Fox, 32, are Olympic champion kayakers, and have been both rivals and allies, in and out of the water.
Noémie: Jess and I were born in Marseille, where our mum’s from, but came to Australia in 2000 when our dad became head coach of the Australian canoe slalom team for the Sydney Olympics. I was about two-and-half, and Jess was three years older, so she took care of me. She was good at music and sport and was dux of the school. She helped me with my notes, and teachers loved me because they’d had Jess who’d been a pleasure to teach.
When we were young, Jess was always easy to live with, whereas I was the squeaky wheel. A lot of my childhood, she’d be like, “OK, if you want the bigger room, you can have it.” That’s something I never would’ve been able to let go. I’m still like that. I’ll lose my hair tie while kayaking and she’ll be like, “Have mine. I don’t need it.”
Jess began competing at school, and I started when I was a bit older. She made it look easy, but I wasn’t such a fast learner. There was a bit of jealousy, naturally. I was envious: I thought, why is she so good and I can’t get there? At her first world championships in 2013, she won the canoe. At my first world junior championships, I came 11th.
Our parents had both been Olympian kayakers and my sister was world number one, so I began feeling like the black sheep, like I didn’t belong because I wasn’t at their level. I was always watching from the grandstands and helping Jess train, so her wins kind of belonged to the whole family – but, still, I constantly felt like a disappointment, even after I started getting better results. Jess understood and tried to lift me up, but there’s only so much help you want from your older sister. It’s especially hard because in our sport, there’s only one spot at the Olympics, so I had to beat Jess to get in the team, and she was so far ahead. In 2020, I “quiet quit” kayaking and did other things: I worked with L’Occitane in Switzerland and visited my grandma in France.
Then a new event, called kayak cross, was introduced for the 2024 Paris Olympics. It opened up extra spots in the Australian team, and it resonated with me because it’s more messy. It was only then that I got out of that victim mindset of “I’m never going to make it”. I thought, “This is going to be something that’ll be mine.” I also decided, when I began training, that I’d learn from Jess and her ability to compartmentalise, which I’m terrible at. I get distracted by my environment, but she’s a magpie: she takes the shiny things and leaves the shit. Even with her surgery in 2025 [for a kidney tumour that proved to be benign], I would’ve panicked but she just went, “What can I take from this to learn and grow?”
In the end, I qualified for the Paris Games. I actually knocked Jess out in the first round. She came over, gave me a hug and said, “Take it all the way.” When I won [gold], she was the first one running down to the finish line. I think Australia loved seeing that moment: me, the little sister knocking her out, and the sportsmanship that she showed in return.
Jess: My first memory was of Noémie being about four, and wanting to be involved with whatever I was doing. I’d be reading a book, gently turning the pages, and she’d be jumping up and down, saying, “Let me read your book!”
When we came to Australia from France, we lived in Glenmore Park [west of Sydney] for a year before moving to Emu Plains [near the Blue Mountains]. We liked sport – swimming, gymnastics. As the younger sibling, you always tag along to whatever the older one’s doing. Noémie would see me do something and try to copy. When I learnt to ride a bike, I spent ages on training wheels, building my confidence. But then, one day, I hear this banging and clanging in the garage, and there’s Noémie, about three years old, teaching herself how to ride a bike, no training wheels, nothing, just going at it.
At the same time, she was super-girly. Our grandmother, who we visited every year in France, had this big jewellery box, and Noémie was always trying on her necklaces, or cooking with her. Meanwhile, I was a tomboy, running around in shorts and a T-shirt.
She didn’t enjoy paddling at the start. She had a traumatic experience when she was 10: she flipped over in a kayak and was upside-down, underwater, and couldn’t get back up. Her instructor rescued her, but she didn’t paddle for a year after that. Eventually, I told her, “It’s scary to get back in, but that’s how you overcome the fear.”
I had success early on. I was a junior world champion at 16, and competed at the Olympics at 18. For a long time, she was on the riverbank, in the crowds, watching and supporting. It was hard for her, especially when she started competing. I wanted her to paddle to her potential, but she knew that to beat me, she had to beat the world number one. I also struggled with it! I thought, “Is it selfish to be hogging that position? Or is that just elite sport, and if you beat me, fair play?” It’s brutal. Either way, she was always there to support me and train, which was pretty selfless.
‘I knew that she’d never let herself dream of being an Olympian because I was blocking that vision.’
Jess Fox
Noémie didn’t want paddling to be her only identity, which is amazing because, for a lot of athletes, it’s the only thing you know. She got an internship overseas with L’Occitane during COVID and commentated during the Tokyo Olympics. But when kayak cross was added to the Paris Olympics, I told her: “OK, you’ve got to commit. You might not qualify, but there’s three people who will, so why not you?” When she decided to have a go, we started training together like sparring partners. The day she qualified, in Prague, I was running along the bank, screaming. My heart rate was like 180, and I lost my voice. When she actually won gold, it was the most euphoric moment because I knew that she’d never let herself dream of being an Olympian because I was blocking that vision.
It’s been a complex relationship: you can be jealous as the younger sister, or you can feel resentment but, at the same time, she has loved and supported me. Luckily, we’ve always been brought up knowing that our paddling career is only a certain number of years, but we’ve got our whole life as sisters.
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