Kayaking: Carrington comfortably into German final

New Zealand kayaker Lisa Carrington. Photo / Brett Phibbs.

Lisa Carrington's world cup kayaking form has continued, while two of her New Zealand teammates will join her in A finals tonight at the German round of the series.

Competition increased significantly in the second of the world cups in Duisburg, with double the nations and more than triple the number of athletes from last week's opening regatta in Portugal.

It didn't faze Carrington, however, with the 25-year-old winning her K1 500m heat and semifinal as she qualified for tonight's final.

Carrington isn't racing the K1 200m this weekend - the event in which she's the defending world and Olympic champion - electing instead to focus on the longer distance. She cruised through her heat in 1min 52.833secs, nearly 3secs clear of second-placed Anja Osterman (Slovenia), then ramped it up in the semifinal to clock 1:50.199.

Only Poland's Ewelina Wojnarowska recorded a faster time, winning the third semifinal in 1:50.036.

Meanwhile, the K2 200m crew of Kayla Imrie and Aimee Fisher qualified directly for tonight's A final, winning their heat in a sharp 38.588sec. They pipped the Kazakhstan crew of Natalya Sergeyeva and Irina Podoinikova by 0.399secs, with Great Britain third.

The strong German crew of Sabine Volz and Conny Wassmuth won the other heat in 38.357.

Imrie and Fisher are part of New Zealand's new K4 500m crew, which captured gold in Portugal last week. The other two paddlers in that crew, Caitlin Ryan and Jaimee Lovett, were also in action, finishing fourth in their K2 500m semifinal to make tonight's B final.
Also making the B final was K1 1000m paddler Marty McDowell, who finished fifth in a fast semifinal but clocked 3:33.784 to sneak through.

K1 200m paddler Scott Bicknell wasn't so fortunate, meanwhile, finishing sixth in his heat to miss the semifinals.