Lisa Carrington embraces Aimee Fisher after the K1 500 final. Photo / Photosport
By Kris Shannon in Paris
Two contrasting emotions swept over Aimee Fisher at the end of this long Olympic journey – confusion and peace.
A much-anticipated showdown with compatriot Lisa Carrington never eventuated in the K1 500 final, with Fisher unable to salvage a sluggish start and missing a medal by 0.15 seconds.
The agony of both the margin and the result was impossible to suppress moments after she returned to dry land at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.
Words heavy with emotion, the source of confusion was clear. Why, holding the world record and having pushed Carrington harder than any athlete had before, would her abilities diminish at the crucial moment?
But her peace was also easy to explain. Fisher, who only a year ago suffered a “soul-crushing defeat” that almost broke her, knew an arduous road had at least run its course.
“I lined up unafraid,” she said. “I felt more peaceful than I ever have on a start line.
“I trusted my game plan and took it one stroke at a time and paddled in perfect love. And it wasn’t enough to win the race. But man, the sun still rises.
“I’ve been here before, and it’s always good and it always makes sense. Sooner or later.”
This time, it could be the latter.
Considering Carrington’s overwhelming dominance – it seemed clear that no one today was beating New Zealand’s greatest Olympian – the rest of the field was battling for a lower spot on the podium.
Standing on either side of Carrington, after all Fisher had endured, would have been a wonderful result. But in the opening moments of the race, the 29-year-old’s boat appeared bogged down, falling well behind to sit sixth after 250m.
Half a second off bronze, that deficit was almost erased like Carrington’s surge at the front of the field. But Fisher ran out of water and wondered what went wrong.
“A little bit of confusion,” she said of her initial feelings. “Obviously I dreamt of it going a different way and I believed for it to go a different way.
“I was just telling myself, be patient, be patient, be patient, be patient. Don’t panic. Don’t get sucked in, be patient. And I was, and I tried to come back hard one stroke at a time, unafraid, and it’s fourth place today.”
After clinching her eighth gold, Carrington guided the black boat towards her one-time challenger and the pair embraced, capping a relationship occasionally uneasy but always full of respect.
“I said, ‘I’m so proud of you’. What an incredible result for New Zealand and all those young females back home,” Fisher said. “She paddled out of her skin. That was magnificent.”
For much of the last few years, Fisher also approached that benchmark. She won K1 500 gold at the 2022 world championships – in Carrington’s absence – and twice fell barely short in a thrilling series of national championship contests.
The second defeat was almost unrecoverable, but recover Fisher did. In May, she set a new world record of 1m 46.19, back inside the national fold after breaking ties before Tokyo.
New Zealand boasted the world’s two best exponents in the event and an Olympic duel had long been circled on many Kiwi fans’ calendars. It failed to materialise, but Fisher would change nothing about this quest – and nothing would change the person she had become.
“It’s been a pretty unconventional pathway and I do feel like I’ve been through hell and back,” Fisher said. “The person that I am now compared to four years ago, four months ago, or even four weeks ago … all the dead wood has been burnt off in the fire.
“This lifestyle is so extreme. It’s so extreme, it’s ridiculous. But it’s so incredible at the same time. Who you become as a person, trying to live out excellence every single day, it’s worth it.”
With Carrington surely paddling into a golden sunset, Fisher looms as this country’s next-best K1 contender. But future plans would wait, the present pain still too fresh.
“I don’t really know how to answer that just yet,” she said. “But there is a lot of pride there. Just a lot of pride for who Aimee Joy is becoming, kayak results aside.
“I can stand here in this loss so still and so knowing that it will be perfect. I’ve just got to let it hurt for a while.”
Kris Shannon has been a sport journalist since 2011 and covers a variety of codes for the Herald.
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