Lisa Carrington in the K1 500m final during the NZ Canoe Sprint Championships 2022 at Lake Karapiro in Waikato, New Zealand on Saturday April 23, 2022. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Lisa Carrington in the K1 500m final during the NZ Canoe Sprint Championships 2022 at Lake Karapiro in Waikato, New Zealand on Saturday April 23, 2022. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Five times Olympic champion Lisa Carrington has reluctantly decided not to race her signature event in this weekend's Canoe Sprint World Cup regatta in Racice in the Czech Republic.
The decorated Olympian headlines an inexperienced 12 strong New Zealand contingent who are competing on the World Cup circuit for thefirst time since 2019 with the borders open again.
But with the K1 200 which Carrington has dominated over the last decade, winning gold at the London, Rio and Tokyo Games, scrapped for Paris 2024, Carrington is putting more of her focus into the K1 500 where she is also the defending Olympic champion.
"With it being a three day regatta it's really challenging to do more than two events and here I am doing three," Carrington said.
She will race in the K1 500, the K2 500 with Alicia Hoskin, and is teaming up with Hoskin and rookies Tara Vaughan and Olivia Brett in a new look K4 500.
"I'd love to do the 200. But often at these World Cups in the past I have had to drop something. So yeah it'd be great to be able to do it next weekend. But it's also just great to focus on the crew boats that I'm doing and the 500."
Next weekend's World Cup regatta in Poznan in Poland is held over four days with the extra day enabling Carrington to contest the K1 200 as well. It's an event that is still on the world championship programme and Carrington will contest it in August in Canada.
Lisa Carrington racing in the K1 500m. Photo / Ben Fraser.
"Even though the 200 is not at the Olympics anymore I think it's still a still a great race and event to do," Carrington said.
Competing internationally for the first time since the Tokyo Olympics and the first time in Europe since 2019 has Carrington interested to see what new talent has emerged internationally to try to challenge her dominance of the sport.
"I'm excited to see if any new young athletes have come through. But I think it's still hard to get rid of people like me."
Spearheaded by Carrington's dominance, female Kayakers have largely dominated the sport in New Zealand ever since Ben Fouhy's silver at the Athens Olympics in 2004. But while not signalling a changing of the guard, Canoe Racing NZ has sent eight male paddlers to Europe and just four women.
Carrington, Hoskin and the men's K2 500 pair of Max Brown and Kurtis Imrie competed in Tokyo with the remaining paddlers inexperienced and new to elite international competition.
"There are a handful of guys that competed as an under 23 crew in 2019 and we have two really young girls in the team (Vaughan and Brett) who've never raced in an open international regatta. So yeah we are full of 'green' athletes who are just excited to get out there. It's really cool to such newness to the sport."
Day one schedule today Cane Sprint World Cup in Racice, Czech Republic.
7.15pm NZT –Women K4 500m- Heat 1 Lisa Carrington, Alicia Hoskin, Tara Vaughan, Olivia Brett 7.33pm NZT – Men K4 500m– Heat 1 Ashton Reiser, Ben McCallum, James Munro, Zach Ferkins 7.39pm NZT – Men K4 500m– Heat 2 Benjamin Duffy, Hamish Legarth, Max Brown, Kurtis Imrie 9.03pm NZT– Women K1 500m- Heat 2 Lisa Carrington 10.04pm NZT– Men K1 1000m- Heat 1 Ben McCallum 10.18pm NZT– Men K1 1000m- Heat 3 Quaid Thompson From 12.10am NZT (Sat 21 May) – WK4 500m Semi-finals From 12.28am NZT (Sat 21 May)- MK4 500m Semi-finals From 1.22am NZT (Sat 21 May)- WK1 500m Semi-finals From 2.03am NZT (Sat 21 May) – MK1 500m Semi finals
