Canoeing: Luuka Jones finishes fourth at canoe slalom championships

Olympic silver medallist Luuka Jones. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Luuka Jones has secured the best finish by a Kiwi at canoe slalom championships but a medal has eluded her.

Olympic silver medallist Jones finished fourth in her specialist K1 class in Pau, France on Saturday.

A day after missing out on the C1 final, Jones made amends with a performance which edges the previous best New Zealand result, when Donald Johnstone was fifth in 1987.

Veteran Kiwi paddler Mike Dawson's career-best seventh placing in the men's K1 on Friday had inspired Jones.

"I was gutted not to make the C1 final but it was so cool to see Mike make the final yesterday and I took a lot of inspiration from that," Jones said.

"I was happy to get back into a good headspace to make the final, after a really competitive semifinal, and was stoked to finish fourth."

Australian Jess Fox scraped into the final in 10th spot but then set a withering time of 97.14 seconds which proved unbeatable.

Slovakia's Jana Dukatova was second and Germany's overall World Cup winner Ricarda Funk third, more than 4sec clear of Jones.

The Kiwi's cause wasn't helped by a 2sec penalty for a gate infringement.

"I didn't think I would be fourth with the run I put down but lots of girls made mistakes," Jones said.

"I think they were trying to push and match Jess's time. I was disappointed with the quality of my run, as I had two touches and felt like I was fighting the water a bit, but fourth is a great result."

The result showed her medal at last year's Rio Olympics was no aberration and bolstered her ambitions to target both the C1 and K1 classes in Tokyo in 2020.

Both Jones and Dawson will contest the extreme slalom class in the final session on Sunday.