Kayaking: Tripling the team

Erin Taylor (left) has already qualified for the kayaking world champs and Teneale Hatton (centre) and Lisa Carrington are attemping to join her. Photo / Janna Dixon

The number 12 will be a significant focus for the New Zealand women's kayaking team heading off to Poland, Hungary and perhaps Canada later this month.

If they finish in the top 12 in Europe, they will earn a trip to the world championships in Canada in August - which would make it one of the heaviest women's contingents to represent this country at that level.

Erin Taylor, Teneale Hatton and Lisa Carrington will join a five-strong men's contingent in Europe and, while 2008 Beijing Olympian Taylor has already qualified for the world championships, her team-mates have more of an uphill course to paddle.

Taylor, 21, the first woman to represent New Zealand in Olympic canoeing and will race in the singles, the K1 500m and K1 1000m She has been delighting coach Ian Ferguson - record New Zealand Olympic medal winner with his success with Paul MacDonald in the 1984 and 1988 Los Angeles and Seoul Olympics - with her progress since Beijing.

"Erin's going really, really well," says Ferguson. "The other girls just don't have a chance of catching her right now, so we are asking them to go into both doubles together [the K2 500m and the K2 1000m].

"Erin is just going ahead in leaps and bounds. It is not a matter of just beating her previous best times, she is bringing them down by a lot. It's been pretty impressive. So we thought it best to put the other girls in the doubles and see if they can make it, too - and they have a good chance."

Ferguson said Carrington and Hatton, both 19, were determined competitors, especially Hatton.

"She's a dangerous beast," says Ferguson. "When people see her, they think she's just a gorgeous slip of a girl and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth - but she is as tough as nails when she competes and she's had some top results in age group stuff without having much work on her technique."

"Three weeks," beams Carrington, when asked how long she and Hatton have paddled together in advance of Europe. "But we are going faster each time; we have things to work on and we are learning quickly how best to work with each other."

Their time together will double by the time they head off for the first meeting in Europe later this month.

Hatton says the European regattas will be a challenge because she is so used to meetings where the crowds are small and interest likewise - whereas the Polish and Hungarian regattas are top-level and hugely followed.

She and Carrington have raced each other since age 15, through surf lifesaving - the source of many of New Zealand's best canoeists.

"It will be just so exciting to get to race and be able to benchmark ourselves and improve," she says.

Taylor is the one most eyes will be on, although the men's team - Steven Ferguson racing the singles and a men's K4 of Tom Yule, Liam O'Loughlin, Troy Burbidge (who came so close to Olympic representation last time) and Scott Bicknell - will also be expected to do well. Ferguson's best result in Beijing was sixth but there are few who saw him race who do not believe he has better results in him.

Taylor will be interesting to watch because of that hand-over-fist improvement which usually denotes a talented sportsperson. She made only the semifinals in Beijing but says the experience was more than useful.

"The pressure wasn't on me because I wasn't expected to win - but it was more the intensity of it...

"I come from such a minority sport and no-one follows us normally, so to have all the lights, camera and action was different and it was a kind of negative pressure - so it was good to experience it and learn to deal with it and it was good to see just how fast the girls went."