Olympics: Lisa Carrington strong medal contender

Ohope kayaker Lisa Carrington has been confirmed in Canoe New Zealand's Olympic squad.

Carrington, the K1 200m world champion, leads a strong line up of paddlers with Ben Fouhy, Darryl Fitzgerald, Steven Ferguson and Erin Taylor being named yesterday.

The 22-year-old will race in her world champion event the women's K1 200m as well as join veteran Olympian Taylor in the women's K2 500m event.

It will be Carrington's first Olympics. She will be wanting to continue the scorching form shown in Rotorua, where she made a clean sweep of this year's nationals at Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake) last month as well as the form she showed to win the Oceania Continental champs in Australia recently.

It has been a meteoric rise for Carrington who burst on to the world scene in August last year when she won the K1 200m race at the canoe sprint world champs in Szeged, Hungary.

 

Carrington became the first New Zealand woman to claim a kayaking world champ medal and the first Kiwi paddler to win gold since Fouhy in 2003, when he won the K1 1000m title.

With all things going well, Carrington is a strong medal contender in both events she has entered. Especially after Carrington and Taylor won the K2 500m Oceania title in a personal best time.

Carrington said on TV this week that she would be looking to be ready to race the race of her life come the Olympics.

"My race is all about going as fast as I can and getting to a max speed and times are really important. You want to be going as fast as you can and I want to get as close to that world record as I can."

Carrington said she was also keen to involve Taylor's Olympics experience.

"She's got a bit of wisdom, she's been there before. It's awesome to go there as a team boat paddler and an individual."

Former world champion and Olympic silver medallist Fouhy will race the men's K1 1000m and Ferguson and Fitzgerald the men's K2 1000m.

Fouhy and Ferguson are Olympic veterans and will be expected to mentor the 21-year-old Fitzgerald.

Another likely candidate for Olympic selection is Teneale Hatton, 22. She hopes to secure enough ranking points in May when she competes at this year's ICF Canoe Sprint World Cups in Poznan, Poland, and Duisburg, Germany. If selected, Hatton will compete in the women's K1 500m division.