Hawke's Bay kayaker Aimee Fisher's dream has come true - she's going to the Olympics.
Fisher is a member of New Zealand's K4 500m women's crew, with Jaimee Lovett, Caitlin Ryan and Kayla Imrie, who qualified for the Rio Olympics with a third placing in their semifinal at the worldchampionships in Milan at the weekend. They followed this up with a ninth placing in the A final late last night.
"I guess there's a pretty high likelihood we'll go to Rio now, which is a bit of a dream come true," a jubilant Fisher said after the semifinal.
"It's been a pretty long year and there's been a lot of suffering together. It's been a year of hurting but it's all really paying off now."
Great Britain and Germany overhauled the Kiwis in the last 50m, clocking 1min 33.635secs and 1:33.706 respectively, but the New Zealand crew were only 0.308secs behind.
Having only been together for nine months, Fisher paid tribute to new national women's coach Rene Olsen, who helped them win the World Cup round in Portugal and has vastly improved their strength and fitness.
Qualifying for Rio has been 20-year-old Fisher's dream for the past four years.
The Karamu High School product has been kayaking for seven years.
In October last year she moved to Auckland to be with the rest of the crew and training could be more regular. She abandoned plans to become an accountant and transferred from studying business at EIT to a three-year sport and Recreation course at AUT with the aim of becoming a physical education teacher.
Just like her on-the-water sacrifices. her off-the-water sacrifices have paid off.
That three of the crew are still eligible for the under-23 world champs adds to the significance of the feat.
Fisher's former Hawke's Bay Kayaking Club coach Ben Bennett described the K4 women's crew's qualification as "fantastic news".
"It's a real credit to the hard work they have put in," he said.
Bennett pointed out their qualification made history for the club as Fisher is the first club member to qualify for an Olympics, and it is the first K4 Kiwi women's crew to qualify.
"I'm sure this will be a big boost for the sport not only in the Bay but around the country," he said.
Whakatane's Lisa Carrington finished the champs with two golds. She retained her K1 200m title and collected the K1 500m crown for the first time.
