Kayaking: Lisa Carrington captures sixth straight world title

Lisa Carrington powered to a sixth successive world K1 200m at Montemor-o-Velho in Portugal while falling agonisingly short of another gold in the K4 500m overnight.

Carrington finished the world championships with one gold and three silver medals as the New Zealand team completed their best haul at the worlds with five total medals.

The K4 500m crew of Carrington, Caitlin Ryan, Aimee Fisher and Kayla Imrie took a valiant silver, finishing just 0.010 behind world and Olympic champions Hungary.

Carrington, who had secured the previous seven global titles in the K1 200m with five straight world titles and two Olympic golds, was without doubt the overwhelming favourite to make it number eight.

However, few could have predicted her level of dominance and stunning victory margin of more than a boat length.

Racing into the lead from the outset, by the 100m mark Carrington already held a three-quarter-of a length lead on her nearest pursuer Linnea Stensils of Sweden.

For the remainder of the race, she put on a demonstration to further destroy the field and stop the clock in 38.821. Emma Jorgensen of Denmark, who repeated her silver medal won at the same event at the 2017 World Championships, finished a distant 1.727 down with Stensils (40.585) in bronze.

"It is amazing, it is awesome just to be here and do what I do with my team-mates. To be able to deliver in the K1 200m, It is pretty cool," Carrington said.

Carrington then returned with her crewmates in optimistic mood having led the qualifiers for the women's K4 500m final, although with a Hungarian crew comprising five-time Olympic champion Danuta Kozak who was hunting her third gold of the regatta, the New Zealanders were aware they faced formidable opposition.

The Kiwi boat got away to a fantastic start and held a advantage by just under a quarter of a second at 250m before the Hungarian crew applied the blowtorch to draw level in the final 100m. In a captivating climax both boats flashed across the line seemingly together only for the Hungarians to be given the photo-finish verdict by one hundredth of a second in 1:33.761.