Thompson into K1 semis

CLASS ACT: Lisa Carrington (left) and Caitlin Ryan produced a powerful performance in the heats of the K2 women’s 500 metres to advance straight to Sunday’s final at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Portugal overnight. Carrington also won her K1 500m heat to move into tomorrow’s semifinals. Picture by Zsuzsanna Vekassy

A fast heat helped Gisborne’s Quaid Thompson advance to the semifinals in his ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships debut in Portugal last night (NZ time).

The 20-year-old Poverty Bay Kayak Club member placed seventh in his K1 1000 metres heat at Montemo-o-Velho in a time of 3 minutes 38.455 seconds.

The top six in each of the four heats automatically qualified for the semifinals, along with the next best three times.

Thompson earned one of those and is next in action on Saturday at 8.51pm.

Had he been in any of the other three heats, Thompson would have made top six. His time was faster than sixth place in the other heats, and faster than two of the fifth-placed kayakers.

He was 7.646secs adrift of his heat winner, Spaniard and K1 500m world recordholder Roi Rodriguez.

Seven-time world champion and double Olympic gold medallist Lisa Carrington produced a controlled performance to win her heat of the women’s K1 500m in 1:53.239 and progress to tomorrow’s semifinal.

The 29-year-old Kiwi qualified sixth fastest overall, before returning to the water just over an hour later to kick-start the defence of her world title with Caitlin Ryan in the women’s K2 500m. The New Zealand duo oozed class to comfortably win their heat in 1:39.262 — 1.085 clear of Olympic champions Danuta Kozak and Anna Karasz of Hungary — to top the qualifiers and go straight through to Sunday’s final.

“It is so exciting to race her (Kozak) and Anna. We just really wanted to make top three, so we didn’t have to go through a semifinal,” said Carrington.

“We’ve got a busy weekend, so where we can we want to cut the (number of) races (we have to compete in) down. We are pretty happy.”

In the women’s K2 200m the relatively new Kiwi combination of Kayla Imrie and Aimee Fisher impressed by qualifying second fastest for Saturday’s A final. With just over a tenth of a second separating the top four crews in qualification, the final, at 11.44pm tomorrow night, is shaping to be one of most compelling races of the regatta. On her open worlds debut, New Zealander Rebecca Cole finished third in her heat of the women’s K1 1000m and eighth-quickest overall.

Later tonight, Scott Martlew will bid to become only the second New Zealand para-canoeist since George Thomas seven years ago to win a world championship medal when he lines up in the KL2 200m final.