Good day for NZ paddlers

New Zealand’s female flatwater paddlers could hardly have wished for more on the opening day of canoe sprinting, but some of their male colleagues had a much more testing time of it.

Lisa Carrington and Alicia Hoskin, looking to defend the women’s K2 500 title that Carrington and Caitlin Regal won in Tokyo, took their heat convincingly from Belgium to advance directly to the semi-finals.

The other New Zealand women’s K2 500 team of Aimee Fisher and Lucy Matehaere didn’t have it so easy, finishing only fourth in their heat, which pushed them to a quarter-final race. Needing to finish in the top four in their quarter-final, Fisher and Matehaere were a distant fifth, so did not progress.

Carrington and Hoskin were also on the water in the women’s K4 500, along with Olivia Brett and Tara Vaughan. Carrington and Hoskin were in the team that finished fourth in the final in Tokyo.

The four were untroubled in their heat, winning by half a second from Spain, with the first three teams moving directly into the final.

Carrington said afterwards nerves were high coming into day. “It’s the first day and it’s an important day. I was stoked we managed to do the job.”

She praised the way Brett and Vaughan slotted into the K4. “Sometimes I have to remind myself this is their first Games. We had a great race. We all have to be on the same page with every stroke the same. I’m incredibly proud of the team.”

In men’s racing, there was a slight complication because Max Brown and Grant Clancy were entered in the canoe double 500 (the event where competitors paddle while braced on one knee). Brown and Clancy’s priority is the men’s K4 500, but to qualify a K4 500 team for Paris, they had to go through a circuitous route of qualifying as a canoe double team, though they are notices in the event.

Brown and Clancy competed twice in the canoe double today and trailed in a distant last both times, keen to conserve their energy for the K4 500.

In the K4 500 they teamed up with Hamish Legarth and Kurtis Imrie, but could finish only fourth in their heat, which consigned them to a quarter-final.

Happily, they negotiated their quarter-final well and finished second to Australia to earn a place in the semi-finals.

Legarth and Imrie didn’t have a good opening race in the K2 500, finishing fifth after easing up halfway down the track. That meant they had to race in the quarter-finals to try to qualify for the semis.

There they went through the agony of a photo finish before being confirmed as the fourth and final team to go through from their race. The New Zealanders were given the verdict by 0.01s over Lithuania.

So at the end of the day, disregarding the canoe double, which was never a serious contender, New Zealand qualified their women’s K4 500 team for the final, one women’s K2 500 team for the semis, and men’s K2 500 and K4 500 teams for the semis – a more than satisfactory day’s work.

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