Australian Olympic bronze and silver medalist Jess Fox has revealed the unusual hack she uses to fix up her damaged kayak — a condom. And she used this again a couple of days back at the Tokyo Olympics to repair her damaged kayak and went on to win the bronze.
Earlier in the week, she shared a video on her Instagram page, where is seen filming a member of her crew covering the nose with a carbon mixture. A day later, she applied the trick and won her first Olympic gold medal in the women's C1 canoe slalom and bronze in the canoe slalom K1 final.
Unusual Hack
Earlier this week, the nose of Fox's kayak was in need of some urgent repairs following her heats and finals for the canoe slalom K1 in Tokyo. She applied the hack that involved covering the nose with a condom and then went ahead to participate in the women's C1 canoe slalom competition, where she won a bronze.
"Bet you never knew condoms could be used for kayak repairs," Fox captioned a TikTok video that showed a condom securing a carbon mixture to the front of her kayak. She is heard saying in the video that the condom's stretchy latex gives the carbon a "smooth finish."
The video — which has garnered over 49,000 views — showed one of her team members repairing the damaged nose of her kayak by using a condom to secure a malleable carbon into place. He then bizarrely stretches a condom over the top to keep the mixture in place.
In the video, she shows how she uses this innovative method to fix her kayak on to the fly.
Photo Finish
Condoms aren't hard to find inside the Olympic Village, as athletes were given a sizable amount upon arrival, a longtime tradition of the Olympic Committee to promote a safe and healthy environment. This year's games also included sustainable cardboard beds. This year's condom tally reached up to 160,000.
Fox came in third in the final of the K1 event clocking a time of 106.73 - less than a second slower than Germany's Ricardo Funk who took the win. The 27-year-old from Sydney was visibly shattered after the event and buried her head into her hands.
When she re-emerged to compete in the women's C1 canoe slalom, she met with her coach and mother, Myriam — a former canoeist who competed in the Olympics. "I told her that I'd thrown up," Fox said. "I was like, 'I feel really good, but I just threw up, so I'll be all right.' And then we fist-bumped.
Although she finished the fastest in the final, time penalties caused her to place third. Much like her mother, Fox's father too excelled in canoe and even competed in the Olympics.
Fox's mother, Myriam, competed for France at the 1992 Barcelona and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, and won bronze in Atlanta in the K1. She was a two-time world champion. Her father, Richard, played for Great Britain and competed in the K1 at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, finishing fourth and was a five-time world champion.
That said, a three-time K1 world champion, Fox is yet to stand at the top of an Olympic podium, winning silver in London in 2012 and bronze in Rio four years later.
