There’s nothing quite as wholesome in sports as professional athlete siblings. In the world of Jewish athletes, the Hughes brothers have dominated the NHL. Twin swimmers Ariel and Mark Malyar represented Israel at the 2020/2021 Tokyo Paralympics, where Mark brought home the gold.
And now, Aussie canoe slalomists Jessica Fox and Noémie Fox will join their ranks when they compete together at the Paris Olympics. While Jessica previously represented Australia at the London, Rio and Tokyo Olympics, where she’s racked up one bronze, two silvers and a gold medal, little sister Noémie is coming to Paris as an Olympic debutante!
Here are 18 things to know about her.
1. Noémie was born on March 19, 1997 in Marseille, France.
2. She’s a Pisces!
3. Her parents are both Olympians! Her father Richard Fox competed for Great Britain, and her mother Myriam Jerusalmi-Fox competed for France. Myriam, who is Jewish, won bronze in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
4. Here she is as a tiny canoeist!
5. Soon after Noémie was born, her family moved to Australia so her father could become the National Head Coach of the Australian canoe team ahead of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
6. Despite only being 3 years old, Noémie clearly remembers the Sydney Games. Listen to her talk about it here:
7. She started competing competitively when she was just 14 years old.
“It’s hard to pinpoint a date as I always remember being around the sport,” Noémie said, when asked when she started canoeing and kayaking.
8. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Communications and received her Masters from the same institution in 2021.
9. Like her sister, Noémie is coached by her mom!
10. Noémie is already a fairly decorated athlete!
She has won two gold medals in the team events at the 2019 and 2023 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships, and a silver medal at the 2017 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships.
11. But she also has a career outside of paddling! Noémie has previously worked in corporate jobs as an analyst and as a partnership manager.
“I think it was something my mom and coach really enforced to, you know, get an education, do well in school, do well outside of the boat,” she told Paddle Australia. She added that having a career is about having “a purpose outside of your sport.”
12. You simply have to watch Noémie in her element:
13. Noémie was pretty emotional when her sister won a gold medal in Tokyo.
“The medal we’ve all been waiting for 💛💛💛 SO PROUD, still ugly crying,” she wrote on Instagram.
14. Noemie is technically eligible to represent France, her home country and her mother’s, or Great Britain, her father’s home country. However, she’s never considered it.
“I wouldn’t ever change countries, and you have a lot of people in our sport that actually do that, to have an opportunity to get to the Games,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “But for me, I think the Olympic Games is more than that, it’s more than just a start line.”
She added, “It’s looking back on the journey you had, and I think Australia does that really well, we celebrate the journey that every athlete has been on.”
15. Check out her reaction when she qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics! “It’s been a long journey to get to this qualification event, never stopped believing this dream could come true and it did,” she wrote on Instagram.
16. Jess and Noemie’s nervous French-Jewish grandmother won’t be coming to their events!
“She’s stressed… for her it’s best to be at home. She’ll be pacing in the backyard,” Jess told the Sydney Morning Herald.
17. Noémie hopes to compete against Jess in Paris!
“To join Jess on the Olympic team is so amazing, and hopefully, we line up next to each other in the kayak cross final — that would be the best possible outcome,” she told the Australian Jewish News.
18. Check out her test runs just ahead of the start of the Paris Olympics!
