Kayaking: Taris Harker makes world final

Taris Harker was part of the New Zealand K4 team that finished ninth at the junior world champs in Romania. Photo / File

Taris Harker's dream of wearing the silver fern at the Olympics is a step closer.

The Mount Maunganui paddler, who turns 21 on Wednesday, was part of the New Zealand under-23 men's K4 kayaking team that made an impact at the junior world championships in Romania last week.

The young Kiwi crew of Kurtis Imrie, Ben Duffy, Karl McMurtrie and Harker won their heat of the K4 500m to qualify directly into the A final on the Args River course in Pitsti. Their impressive time of 1 min 29.272 secs was faster than the highly-rated Russian crew.

They finished ninth in the final but Harker says overall they are happy with ninth in the world at this stage.

"it was definitely a major achievement in my books. That was my first A final on the world stage and [for] another two of the boys in the boat it was their first A final as well, so it was a big achievement.

"The fact we have all moved to Auckland and have been training together in the last six months means this is a step in the right direction for us to be able to produce that result in such a short time together."

The final was another experience altogether for Harker and his crew.

"Because we missed the semifinal we didn't race seven of the top crews until the final so it was quite a good step up. It was interesting to see the difference from the heats to the final.

"It was good though and a lot of fun to be racing against the best in the world. I think now we will be turning some heads after the short amount of time we had to prepare for it."

The Tokyo Olympics are never far away from any elite athlete competing in an Olympic discipline.

Harker and his team mates were fortunate to spend some quality time in Japan, including checking out the Olympic site under construction, before going to the world champs in Romania.

They trained with the Japanese national team in Komatsu on Japan's west coast.

"The Japan camp was an awesome experience, getting to train with another country and see how they work as a team, and working with lanes and start gates was a huge help to have before racing at worlds," Harker said.

"We also went to see the Olympic course currently being constructed, which was a huge thing to see what was going on there. It is currently in the early stages but you can see what they are trying to do and it looks very cool."

Harker is from a well-known surf lifesaving family. He has represented his club Omanu since he was a nipper.

Despite moving away he says he will be back to compete at surf events over the summer.

"I competed at nationals last year and did the Mount Monster last year and will do it again this summer. I still dabble but it has to fit in with kayaking."