While the cream of the country's best paddlers line up for the 2020 NZCT New Zealand Canoe Sprint Championships at Lake Karapiro tomorrow, a small group of Kiwi athletes will be chasing quota spots for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Australia this weekend.

They will compete at the Oceania Canoe Sprint Championships in Penrith, Sydney on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Leading the Kiwi challenge in Australia will be Whanganui paddler Max Brown and his Mana partner Kurtis Imrie, who enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2019 reaching the A Final in the K2 1000m at the World Cup in Poznan. The duo will be back in action in Sydney pursuing a K2 1000m berth for New Zealand at the Tokyo Olympics.

Australia qualified a boat in this event via last year's World Championships, so providing the Kiwi duo finish ahead of the best of the rest in Oceania they will have secured an Olympic quota spot.

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However, that should the pair qualify a boat this is no guarantee that Brown or Imdrie will be selected for Tokyo as a decision on the precise make-up on the boat will be made following trials in the next few weeks.