In the final international slalom event before next month’s International Canoe Federation World Championships and Olympic qualifiers at Lee Valley in London - an event that was also the first leg of the Olympic selection race for Paris 2024 - she won in a time of 1min 07.09sec.

Germany’s Andrea Herzog, who accrued no penalties in clocking 1:07.17, was second and Britain’s Kimberley Woods, whose 1:09.02 time reflected two seconds in penalties, earned bronze.

Fox’s main rival for the overall C1 World Cup title, Germany’s Elena Lilik, needed two runs to qualify for the semi-finals after running into trouble on her first run and failed to progress to the final.

"I think it’s always good to challenge yourself because sometimes you’re in a position where you know that that is faster and riskier, but sometimes you’ve just got to try and give it everything and take that risk to try and scrape a few seconds," Fox said.

The men’s C1 title went to unheralded Italian Raffaello Ivaldi, who earned the biggest win of his career in a time of 1:36.52 from Luka Bozic of Slovenia, winner at the last World Cup in Tacen, who recorded 1:37.53, and Slovakia’s Marko Mirgorodsky, who clocked 1:37.63.

"You train hard your entire life, you work hard, and you get to the races and the field is just amazing, everybody is so good, everybody is racing so fast, and you ask yourself if you deserve to be in the middle of these guys," Ivaldi said.

"Then you fail, and you fail again, so you keep going back to work.

"But in the end days like today arrive, it is worth it."

Slovenia's Peter Kauzer, who put off retirement after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to try and qualify for a fifth Games, did his prospects a lot of good as he won the men’s K1 event - six days short of his 40^th birthday.

Slovakia’s Eliska Mintalova, meanwhile. won her first ever World Cup women’s K1 gold.

Kauzer, who won silver at the Rio 2016 Olympics, recorded a winning time of 1:29.36 to finish ahead of Britain’s Rio 2016 champion Joseph Clarke on 1:30.44 and current world champion Vit Prindis of the Czech Republic on 1:30.90.

"I just wanted to do a good run in the finals," Kauzer said.

"I’d had some difficulties at the first part of the season, I couldn’t progress to the finals, and now I’m really happy that I could prove that I’m still worthy of being here.

"I showed that I am still fast, even though I will turn 40 in a couple of days, so I hope it won’t go downhill from there.

"I’m happy that I am still here and can still show some magic on the water."

Olympic champion Jiri Prskavec of the Czech Republic was the big name missing from the final after he received a 50-second penalty for missing a gate in the semi-final.

It was the 13^th World Cup gold of Kauzer’s career.

By contrast Mintalova reached the top of the World Cup podium for the first time after posting an error-free run in the women’s K1 final to deny Fox, who was aiming for a third consecutive World Cup gold for the season in the event.

The win came at a crucial time for Mintalova, as La Seu was also the first leg of the Olympic selection race for Paris 2024.

"I don’t know what to say, it’s an amazing day for me, I tried to push so hard on the course, and I did it, I won my first gold medal in a World Cup," Mintalova said.

"I have been feeling very good on the water in training, but didn’t have the best run in qualification, but my final race was much better. 

"La Seu is very challenging, very hard and was tricky today.”

Fox posted the fastest raw time on the course but a small touch pushed her down to the silver medal on 1:39.42 behind Mintalova’s 1:39.36, with bronze going to Italy’s Stefanie Horn in 1:40.23.

On the final day of competition Switzerland continued its dominance of men’s kayak cross, while Lilik broke through for her first gold medal.

The Swiss have revolutionised the men’s kayak cross competition with speed and tactics which have left the rest of the world playing catch up.

At a previous World Cup in Prague Dimitri Marx and Jan Rohrer finished first and second.

This time round Rohrer got the gold ahead of Britain’s reigning world champion Joe Clarke, with France’s world silver medallist Anatole Delassus taking bronze.

Two Olympic K1 gold medallists found themselves lining up against each other in the women’s kayak cross final, with Germany’s reigning champion Ricarda Funk and Spain’s Rio 2016 title holder, Maialen Chourraut competing.

But it was Lilik and Britain’s Woods who fought out the finish, with Lilik putting together a tactically perfect race to take the gold after a difficult week on the water.