Kayaking: Carrington charts new water

Whakatane's Lisa Carrington will be racing in a new event when she takes to the water for the New Zealand kayak team.

The Olympic Gold medallist has arrived in Europe with the rest of the New Zealand team ahead of three world cup regattas this month.

The first regatta is being held in Hungary across three days starting tonight.

Carrington's first race will be a new distance for her - the WK1 500m.

In her heat, Carrington will be up against Olympic 500m Gold medallist Danuta Kozak (Hungary).

Also featuring for New Zealand tonight will be the new pairing of Olympian Teneale Hatton and Rachael Dodwell. The pair kick start their 2013 campaign in the WK2 500m.

Ben Fouhy will also start his season tonight. Picking the competition the first year after the Olympics can be difficult with loads of new combinations.

The Hungarians are regarded as a kayak-mad nation and the organisers are expecting more than 25,000 spectators each day.

On top of this, there will be live broadcasts on Eurosport television throughout the weekend.

The event is attended by 40 nations with close to 700 competitors.

However, this is well down on the last time Szeged held an international kayak event (2011 World Championship) where there were 94 nations and over 1000 competitors.

Being the first event in the year after the Olympics numbers are often down.