Whakatāne's Lisa Carrington continues to dominate Canoe Sprint Nationals

The 2020 Halberg Sportswoman of the Year Lisa Carrington was at it again at the New Zealand Canoe Sprint Championships at the weekend.

The 30-year-old double Olympic champion was a class above as she cruised to titles in both the open women's K1 200m and K1 500m.

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At Lake Karapiro on Friday, just a day after claiming her fourth successive Sportswoman of the Year crown, she stopped the clock in a blistering 38.50s in the 200m final – just more than half a second outside of her world best time of 37.898s.

A full boat length behind, Aimee Fisher (Hawke's Bay) still produced an outstanding paddle to repeat her silver medal performance from 12 months ago with an eye-catching clocking of 39.69s. Caitlin Ryan (North Shore), the 2018 K2 500m world champion, completed the podium in 40.03s.

For Carrington, a seven-time world K1 200m champion, victory represented a successful first competitive appearance of the year on the road to the Tokyo Olympics Games.

"I turn up every year trying to do my best and today was all about making sure I got myself in a space where I could perform," she said.

"I try not to worry about placings and hopefully this will allow me to do justice to my performance. But what is most pleasing is the quality and depth has improved immensely in New Zealand since I first started paddling."

Following the retention of her national 200m title on Friday, Carrington was back on the water in the heats of the open women's K1 500m on Saturday. She cruised to victory in heat two in 1m 54.74s to earn a direct passage into the A Final.

On Sunday, she smashed her heat time and claimed the gold medal in 1m 48.23s. Ryan was second in 1m 50.42s and Fisher was third in 1m 52.54s - a repeat of the 2019 podium.

New Zealand also earned a huge boost for their Tokyo Olympic ambitions on Friday as Kurtis Imrie and Max Brown booked the K2 1000m boat via the Olympic quota system at the Oceania Canoe Sprint Championships in Penrith, Sydney.

The duo finished second in the Olympic Trial race in a time of 3m 24.15s, a little over five seconds behind the Australian duo Lachlan Tame and Murray Stewart.

Australia had already booked an Olympic berth via this event at the World Championships but because Brown and Imrie finished ahead of the best of the rest of the region they banked the second Olympic quota spot.

Earlier, Kiwi Quaid Thompson won his heat of the K1 1000m to also secure an Olympic quota spot. The Olympic Qualification System only allows each nation to qualify a maximum of one men's boat from the Oceania Qualifier.