Olympian Uses Condom To Fix Kayak, Wins Gold Medal

A week before she won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, Jessica Fox shared on social media a video of her repairing the damaged nose of her kayak using a condom.

Before winning her first Olympic gold medal in the women’s C1 canoe slalom and bronze in the canoe slalom K1 final, Fox shared a TikTok video that showed a condom securing a carbon mixture to the front of her kayak, New York Post reported.

“Bet you never knew condoms could be used for kayak repairs,” the Australian canoeing athlete wrote, adding that the stretchy latex gives the carbon a "smooth finish."

There is no shortage when it comes to condoms in the Olympic Village as each athlete is given a sizable amount upon arrival. This year, the Tokyo Olympics handed out 160,000, though organizers have insisted that they should be used after the Games due to COVID-19 rules, according to The Guardian.

Meanwhile, before the 27-year-old athlete won gold, Fox had to run around the back of a group of tents at Tokyo’s Kasai Canoe Slalom Center to vomit, News.com.au reported.

“I told her that I’d thrown up,” the four-time Olympic medallist said of her coach and mother, Myriam, a former canoeist who also competed in the Olympics. “I was like, ‘I feel really good, but I just threw up, so I’ll be all right.’ And then we fist-bumped."

“Whatever I‘d had between the runs didn’t sit well and then I just thought, ‘OK, my body’s ready, that’s just my body telling me to get ready for something big,’” Fox explained. “So it’s always about reframing those things and putting it into a positive.”

The journey Fox went through before getting her gold medal, however, was not a walk in the park. The athlete snagged it after nine years of trying. Fox shared that there were times when she'd wonder if the gold medal was even for her after failing so many times.

“It doesn’t always go to plan and when you add the Olympics, the heightened emotion and stress and pressure and what it means, it’s once every four years so it’s very hard sometimes to race naturally,” Fox said.

She continued, “While I felt amazing in the kayak in the heats, in the semis, coming into that final I felt ready, I felt good and it just slipped away from me in those two gates and I was absolutely gutted to not do the run I wanted to at that moment. To come back from the kayak when I had conflicting emotions … and then re-living that race and coming back in the C-1 was really challenging."

Fox added that although the nine-year journey was challenging, it all turned out to be worth the wait when she finally brought home the gold this year.

“It was taxing mentally, emotionally, and physically so I’m thrilled to come back from that today and win,” she said.