Tom Collings | Australian Canoeing - The 2014 Australian Open concludes following an exciting day of finals. Jessica Fox has continued her blistering form adding the K1W and C1W Australian Open titles to the National titles she recorded on Friday and Saturday.

In the same event that she won silver in at the London Olympic Games, Fox took out the K1W title despite incurring a two second time penalty for a gate touch.

The 19 year old completed the 20 gate course in 100.50, 1.09 seconds ahead of Victorian Sarah Grant.  NSWIS paddler Rosalyn Lawrence finished third.

Fox followed her K1 victory with a dominant performance in the C1, finishing more than eight seconds ahead of Lawrence in second place.

“I am happy, it was really tight racing both days and then in the final as well between Sarah, Ros and Luuka (Jones) in the K1 and then Ros and the others in the C1”, Fox said.

“They really pushed it out there and made me push harder and I pulled out some times that I was really happy with.”

Noemie Fox finished third to join her older sister on the senior podium for the first time.

“It is cool to share with my sister, it is probably the first time so that will be pretty good.”

Noemie enjoyed racing on a slightly tougher course than the one set for the qualification runs.

“It was very tricky, there were a few challengers but it was just about boat placement in the water and being high in the arc so luckily I did that in most of my runs.”

New Zealand veteran Michael Dawson won his first Australian Open title in the K1M final.

Dawson lead a trio of international athletes producing a clean run of 90.95 to finish 1.23 seconds clear of Frenchman Pierre Bourliaud.  Fellow countryman Etienne Daille followed closely behind in third.

“It is cool to win the Aussie Open title after coming here for a lot of years and not winning it”, Dawson said.

“This race doubled as the New Zealand selection race so it was really important to make sure that I was in the top three so I get to race World Cups and World Champs.”

Lucien Delfour was the best of the Australians finishing fourth 2.05 seconds behind Dawson.

Importantly, Delfour won the first selection trial for senior selection but will be thinking what could have been after setting the fastest raw time of 89.00 but incurred a four second penalty for two gate touches, relegating him outside of the medals.

U23 kayaker Tim Anderson produced his best senior result, finishing fifth just ahead of fellow Victorian Jaxon Merritt.

“I am really stoked with that actually. I was really glad to be given the opportunity to race in the final being eleventh boat but I guess I just took the chance and the opportunity and put down my best run so I am really happy with that”, Anderson said.

Penrith’s Ian Borrows clinched his first major title winning the open C1M event.

The 24 year old built on a solid semifinal performance earlier in the day to dominate the final winning in 96.03, 3.67 seconds ahead of Victorian Christian Fabris and Ethan Hodson.

“I am pretty happy, I paddled the way I wanted to paddle. I had a touch on (gate) six and I thought I was going to get pushed out a bit but I gave it a bit more through the rest of the sections and managed to come out on top.”

“It was my first big race win so really happy and hopefully it is a good start for the rest of season”, said Borrows.

Fabris missed out on competing at last year’s World Championships following a bout of pneumonia and was pleased with his first race since the World Cups last year.

“I was really happy with the way I paddled all week. I have been working on some changes with Nick (Smith) and it really came to fruition over the weekend - four solid runs that weren’t the fastest on the board but moving in the right direction”, Fabris said.

Hodson also featured on the C2M podium, combining with Western Australian Robin Jeffery to win their second consecutive Australian Open Championship.

They won in 108.29, 9.83 seconds ahead of Western Australian duo Brodie Crawford and Steven Lowther.

Daniel Munro and Luke Robertson of New Zealand finished third.

Links

• Event website: www.ausopen.canoe.org.au
• Finals on YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/AustralianCanoeing/videos