By Michael Burgess in Paris
It was a quiet morning at Lake Karapiro when Dame Lisa Carrington, Alicia Hoskin, Olivia Brett and Tara Vaughan first got in a boat together.
It was April 2022, a few weeks before the start of the international season. With the retirements of three senior paddlers from the previous Olympic cycle, Gordon Walker and Canoe Racing New Zealand needed to put together a new crew. Carrington and Hoskin were incumbents from the campaign, while Brett (then 21) and 18-year-old Vaughan had impressed in a couple of junior campaigns.
But it wasn’t instant flow. Their first few runs weren’t exactly smooth and Vaughan was so nervous she could barely speak to Carrington, let alone see her as a teammate. However, Walker and the coaches saw something, and their potential was underlined by the sixth-place finish at their first World Cup meet (in the Czech Republic) a few weeks later.
But there was a lot to learn, especially for Vaughan and Brett, who didn’t have the same paddling mileage behind them and had to adjust to being fulltime athletes, while Hoskin had to fill the imposing vacuum left by Tokyo K2 500m gold medallist Caitlin Ryan, who had provided so much horsepower in the previous iteration.
With a limited time frame – and lacking the experience of other crews – they emphasised cohesion on and off the water, determined to prove that a collective, step-by-step approach could yield dividends. It did, in a spectacular way.
The quartet have joined the legends of Kiwi kayaking and New Zealand sport with their remarkable gold medal triumph at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium. It was a brilliant performance – carving out their peak race at the most important time – and the climax of a successful project, built from the ground up.
“It’s incredible to witness a whole lot of growth from all of us and we seriously can’t do it without our coaches, Gordy, Chris [Mehak] and all the team behind us,” an elated Carrington said.
“We’ve also just really just fallen in love with paddling the K4 500m and that’s helped us to be able to execute what we did [on Friday]. We just really love paddling and the art of it because that’s what it takes.”
Since their formation, the quartet have been fighting the odds – given the depth and resources of other big kayaking nations – but has steadily improved. The gold medal at the 2023 world championships was a flashpoint, but the Olympics is always another step, especially in the K4 500m.
No other nation outside Hungary or Germany had won this event since 1988 in Seoul (East Germany) and similar to the eight in rowing, it is the most coveted prize. This was Carrington’s sixth Olympic gold – and seventh medal overall – but admitted it was one of the most precious, given what it took to achieve.
“It’s incredibly special,” Carrington said.
“You wouldn’t have thought when we finished Tokyo that us four would be here, winning a gold medal. It’s just testament to the team and the people behind it because they’ve worked just as hard or harder than us.”
The success has been built on chemistry. Putting aside Carrington, there are faster individual paddlers out there, but the Kiwi foursome have transformed themselves into a smooth machine.
“We have this aligned agreement that when we paddle together, we’re better than we can be on our own,” said Vaughan. “We have to play to our strengths.”
Brett added: “You’ve got to have four girls on the same page doing the exact same thing at the same time. All of our bodies are screaming at us, but this is why we’ve done the preparation, we’ve done the training, we trust each other.”
They are also close off the water. They have trained six days a week for the past two years and completed a four-month build-up across Europe. But they still enjoy each other’s company, going for coffees in downtime and pairing up to cook together on overseas trips. They also wear signature plaits on race day, braided by Hoskin and Brett.
“They do our plaits and each other’s,” Carrington laughed. “Tara and I are terrible.”
The race was a thriller. In lane five, New Zealand were away quickly, building a lead of half a boat length in the first 200m. But Germany, who had set the fastest time in qualifying, began their push, with the margin at just 0.05 at the halfway point, before the Europeans went ahead.
“Yeah, I could sense that,” said Carrington. “Coming into those last 200 metres it’s like, ‘this is it’. We’ve got to keep putting in the work and keep sticking to how we technically know how to paddle and squeezing out as much as we can.”
Germany was still in front, before the New Zealanders found another push, surging ahead with just over 100m to go, as the Kiwis in the grandstand, including more than 70 family and friends, got to their feet.
“We executed the race plan that we know we can do,” said Brett. “Coming through at the end, when we do need a little bit of a lift, everyone’s just got that last little bit of heart at the end.”
Carrington knew they had won – “I could see across” – but there was uncertainty behind her. They crossed the line in 1m32.20s, with Germany recording 1m32.62s and defending Olympic champions Hungary grabbing bronze in 1.32.93.
“I had no idea where we were,” Vaughan said. “I was just paddle paddle, paddle, just keep going.”
When the realisation came through, there were tears and celebration, while Brett laid flat back in her seat, overcome with emotion.
“We learned a lot from Tokyo,” Hoskin said. “We learned a lot from all the girls that have been before us. It’s an evolving thing and the K4 can be a complex boat. So we’ve worked incredibly hard on all the things that can make a difference - our teamwork, our technique and our strategy - and it was nice to see that come together.”
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist since 2005, winning several national awards and covering Olympics’, Fifa World Cups and America’s Cup campaigns. A football aficionado, Burgess will never forget the noise that greeted Rory Fallon’s goal against Bahrain in Wellington in 2009.