Canoeing: Silver for Carrington but Fouhy misfires

New Zealand canoeist Lisa Carrington. Photo / Brett Phibbs

It wasn't gold, but there was something to smile about for the New Zealand canoeing squad as defending world champion Lisa Carrington bagged a silver medal in Duisburg last night.

Carrington, who stunned the paddling world with her gold at the world championships last year, was squeezed out of the K1 200m win by three-time Olympic champion Natasa Douchev-Janics of Hungary.

In a blur of blades, Douchev-Janics clocked 40.751 seconds, shading the Bay of Plenty racer by just .096s.

There were disappointments elsewhere for the New Zealanders, but Carrington showed she is right up with the pace as she heads off for a training block in Germany this week.

"She is disappointed not to win, especially when it's that close, because it's within your reach," coach Gordon Walker said from Duisburg last night.

"But she's absolutely rapt with the performance. It's as good as she's ever raced. That was as tough as the world final in a lot of respects and she dealt with the pressure very well."

Fingers are crossed that Olympic hopeful Teneale Hatton has done enough at the Poznan and Duisburg World Cup regattas to squeeze into the Games team.

But there are concerns over former world champion and Olympic silver medallist Ben Fouhy's form as the London Games approach.

Hatton finished sixth in her B final of the K1 500m, the event in which she's attempting to qualify for London, in 1min 57.035s.

Once multiple entries from the World Cup regattas are trimmed back to the one per country Olympic standard, Hatton is sitting just inside the top 16, the area she must be in to satisfy the New Zealand Olympic Committee of the merits of her case for an Olympic spot.

Hatton raced the K1 200m C final last night, finishing seventh in 43.391s.

Fouhy has team officials scratching their heads. He put in a strong race in his heat of the K1 1000m, finishing behind only Norwegian Eirik Veraas Larsen, the man who beat him to the gold medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004. But it was all downhill after that. Fouhy finished eighth in his semifinal and did not even contest the C final yesterday.

"To be honest, we're not really sure," team manager Grant Restall said. "There's no injury, he's in a good head space so it's a bit of a mystery."

K2 1000m men Steven Ferguson and Darryl Fitzgerald won the B final in 3:18.903.