Carrington to target more success

REST TIME: Lisa Carrington is set to take a break, but is also targeting more success. PHOTO/FILE

The emotional toll finally told as Lisa Carrington fell short in her bid for an Olympic sprint canoe golden double, but she says bronze is still a medal to savour.

New Zealand's most decorated athlete in Rio, Carrington, has made it clear she's targeting more success - after a decent break.

"I will have a really good break. This is pretty much me for the time, I can't confirm any real plans now but there's always growth."

After winning gold in the K1 200m earlier in the week, Carrington spend much of the K1 500m final in last place until a withering finish lifted her to third, although she was well behind Hungarian winner Danuta Kozak.

"Danuta is an incredible paddler and that's something I want to strive for. It's exciting, it's great to have that fire to keep going."

Carrington was struggling to explain her emotions immediately after the race, but she was still on a high.

"It's huge. It's not necessarily the race I'm feeling. It's all the work I've put in, the amazing journey I've had so far. It's true joy."

Carrington's historic Olympic kayaking deeds are a massive boost for the sport, Canoe Racing New Zealand boss Mark Weatherall believes.

Carrington is the first New Zealand woman to win two Olympic medals at the same games.

With a gold in London four years ago, she also joined boardsailor Barbara Kendall (gold in 1992, silver in 1996 and bronze in 2000) and shot putter Val Adams (gold in 2008 and 2012 and silver in Rio) as New Zealand's most successful female Olympian.

Weatherall thinks Carrington deserves to sit alongside Olympic giants like Peter Snell, fellow kayakers Ian Ferguson and Paul MacDonald and swimmer Danyon Loader after her inspiring deeds.

"Lisa's gold medal in London four years ago created a huge surge in the number of female paddlers in New Zealand and there's no reason to believe that won't happen again," Weatherall said.

"We've already seeing the fruits of that surge, both at senior level and with our top juniors, which makes the next four years heading into Tokyo 2020 incredibly exciting."

Carrington revealed four successive days of top-flight competition - comprising six races - had been taxing, mentally as much as physically. Coming down from the high of gold was the hardest challenge.

"There's a lot of contrast of emotions and feelings and nerves," she said. "To just line up (for the K1 500m), I'm personally going to be proud of that.

"And it was a tough race. It was pure determination in the end and just trying harder and harder to squeeze everything out that I had."