Here's hoping the remarkable Lisa Carrington aims her kayak at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Not just because Kiwis might want Carrington to continue as New Zealand's most decorated Olympic athlete with her five golds and a bronze (although that too; she could set a record that may never bebroken) – but because of her coach's recent remarks that her best is yet to come.
At face value that may seem a somewhat hopeful remark – until you consider that this is Lisa Carrington; most things are possible.
Still, she will face a number of issues ahead of Paris. Her wedding is due next year and by Paris she will have just turned 35, an age at which many women who are not mothers begin to think hard about babies. Add to that the fact the event she has hugely dominated – the K1 200m – has been ditched from the Olympics.
That leaves the K1 500m, the K2 500m and the K4 500m as events she could contest but her favourite event gone makes a retirement decision more likely.
But this is Lisa Carrington, not known for a tendency to quit. There is also a case to be made that she may feel she has unfinished business.
That may sound facile to apply to someone with nothing left to prove and who, besides her six Olympic medals, has 17 world championship medals (10 gold, five silver, two bronze) from 2011-2019 – 23 medals in all. Those world championship medals make you wonder why Kiwis don't celebrate them as much as the Olympic versions.
But, by any count, Carrington's career has been stunningly successful. There have been only three K1 200m gold medals in the history of the Olympics – Carrington has won them all, the only sprint kayaker to pitch a shutout, as the Americans say; four of her five golds are in individual K1 events.
However, while she is New Zealand's most prolific Olympic athlete – she's not yet the most successful in world canoeing history.
She could be. She could be the most successful individual Olympic paddler her sport has known.
She is already ahead, gold medal-wise, of the acclaimed Hungarian paddler Katalin Kovacs, who won three golds and five silvers in the three Olympics between 2004-2012. More medals in total, sure, but all Kovacs' Olympic gongs were won in K2 or K4 boats, no individual K1 medals.
Lisa Carrington. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Another Hungarian, Danuta Kozak, was in Tokyo and won gold in the K4 500m in which Carrington, Caitlin Regal, Teneale Hatton, and Alicia Hoskins finished fourth, nixing what would have been the only time that one paddler claimed four gold medals at one Olympics. That K4 victory was Kozak's sixth Olympic gold (she also has one silver and one bronze). Only two have come in K1 events.
Carrington also trails the medal haul of the great Birgit Fischer of Germany (eight Olympic golds, four silvers), though only two of those golds (and one silver) came in individual K1 events. You see where we're going with this?
Fischer is both the youngest and oldest Olympic canoeing champion – she was 18 when she won gold in Moscow in 1980 and 42 (post-children) when she won K4 500m gold in Athens in 2004. Fischer also has 38 world championship medals (23 gold) for an astonishing overall tally of 50 medals.
So Carrington's path to earning the title of canoeing's greatest individual Olympic paddler is currently only blocked by a bloke – Sweden's Gert Fredriksson; he won six golds between 1948-1960, five in K1 events, one ahead of her.
You can see how the stage in Paris might be temptingly set for Carrington, even without the K1 200m. Kozak will be 37 by Paris – but sprint kayaking is known for the longevity of paddlers and she could be there for an intriguing showdown with Carrington.
What we don't know is Carrington's ambition to return to the Olympic stage. She could knock off both Kozak's and Fredriksson's records and become the greatest paddler of all time in individual events, second only to Fischer's 12 Olympic medals overall.
When she won her K1 500m in Tokyo, Carrington revealed she'd been wary of committing to that event after her bronze in Rio in 2016: "It's taken me five years to have that courage to get back out there and do something that is really scary and hurts a lot... I hate it but I love it." Anyone who has trained hard in any sport will recognise her "hate it but love it" refrain.
Carrington is so firmly anchored to the earth that dreams of the 'greatest of all time' may not figure highly for her, for those of us who love watching her grimace-smile as she digs it in and wins again, let's hope the "love" triumphs out in time for Paris.
