Jessica Fox and Leanne Guinea repeated their medal success from last year's world championship swapping places on the podium at this year's World Cup event in La Seu D'Urgell, Spain.

This time it was the turn of Fox to claim the gold medal at the Parc del Segre, venue of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, with a scorching second run ahead of Jana Dukatova from Slovakia and last year's winner, Guinea.

Following the semi-final, Fox found herself in a Chinese sandwich between Nanqin Cen, last week's winner in Prague and Quanqian Teng, the silver medallist. In response, the youngster took 11 seconds off her running time posting a total score of 116.15 which included 4 seconds of penalties, while the Chinese dropped away on the final run.

"It was a good run and the main moves came together pretty well, so I am happy with the time and result" said Fox who had earlier in the day raced  in the women's K1 event.

Guinea and Dukatova had struggled in the C1 semi final qualifying for the final in 9th and 6th respectively. Both paddlers improved, posting clean runs in the final, the Slovakian claiming silver in 119.15 ahead of the Australian's 121.42. Ros Lawrence finished 6th in 131.55 completing a strong showing for the Australians.

 It was a spirited conclusion to the event for Australia with Head Coach, Mike Druce, recognising the improved commitment and engagement of the team.

"We definitely picked things up from last week in Prague, our runs in qualification were a better indicator with two athletes in the top ten men's and women's times, we had more boat in the semis and were closer to the finals in all other categories as we continue our build up to the worlds in September" Druce said.

Kynan Maley, 27th in C1 in Prague, improved to 14th this week in La Seu. Robin Jeffery, Maley's C2 partner also improved finishing 34th with Ethan Hodson ten places back.

At the top end, world champion, Tony Estanguet of France, was upstaged magnificently by Stanislav Jezek of the Czech Republic who won by an incredible four seconds, Ander Elosegi of Spain claimed third.

In C2, Jeffery and Maley are in the top ten nations but lurking just outside the cut off for the semi finals, this week in 24th position. Ben Hankinson and Phillip Gibbins finished 29th.

The upset in C2 was the demise of the Hochshorners, winners of the heats, winners of the semi final, the dynamic duo then dropped to 7th in the final. However, the gold medal stayed with Slovakia in the shape of the Skantar cousins who pipped Czech pair Volf / Stepanek and Germans, Becke / Henze.

Warwick Draper went well in the qualifying heats finishing 7th and was on track on the semi final until an error took its toll in the final section of the course, he finished 19th, 0.7 out of the final. Will Forsythe was 14th in the heats dropping to 32nd in the semi final with Lucien Delfour in 48th.

Daniele Molmenti of Italy continued his winning roll in this years' World Cup taking top honous ahead of Michael Kurt of Switzerland, improving on his bonze last week, and world champion, Peter Kauzer of Slovenia.

In the final event of the day, Maielen Chourraut, the feisty Spanish favourite, improved on her silver at last year's world championship to take gold in the women's K1 ahead of veteran Elena Kaliska, the Olympic champion from Slovakia, and Britain's Fiona Pennie who, after a few years in the doldrums, has won back to back World Cup medals.

Australia's women improved from Prague and came closer to the finals with Jessica Fox climbing from 31st to 14th and Sarah Grant improving by one place to 16th, just ahead of Bongardt of Germany the 2007 world champion and Shornberg, 2009 world champion and winner of of World Cup 1 last week.

Kate Lawrence, victim of a 50 second penalty in the first run of the heats missed the semis cut by 0.13 to finish 31st. She will be better in Augsburg next week.

The World Cup caravan now heads back to central Europe and the Eiskanal in Germany for the third and final World Cup of the 2010 season.

Australian Canoeing