The New Zealand Team has named it’s largest ever women’s canoe sprint team for the Paris Olympic Games. Video / Ben Dickens
When you ask Dame Lisa Carrington about what could be achieved at the 2024 Olympics, her answer is simple and emphatic.
Carrington, who was confirmed on Wednesday as the anchor of a six-strong women’s canoe sprint team for Paris, has never believed in boundaries - and isn’t about to start now.
“Anything is possible,” Carrington told the Herald, as she watched her excited teammates getting photos with family and friends on the banks of Lake Pupuke in Auckland’s Takapuna.
“The big thing is for us to keep dreaming, keep being super creative around what we are doing and not be limited by the game or the medals or the winning. There is more to it. We have to keep thinking there is always more than that.”
Carrington has long ago mastered the mantra of process over outcome but she also delivers results, on an unprecedented scale. She has six Olympics medals - including a staggering five golds - achieved in London, Rio and Tokyo. As always, the focus will be on the 34-year-old, but there is ability all around her, with young talent in an exciting K4 crew (Carrington, Alicia Hoskin, Olivia Brett and Tara Vaughan), who claimed New Zealand’s first world championship title in the big boat last year in a stunning race.
Carrington’s K2 partnership with Hoskin is developing well - shown by a blistering 1m 36s recorded at the recent Australian nationals, while Aimee Fisher is one of the world’s best solo paddlers. Fisher will also team up with Dunedin’s Lucy Matehaere in a second K2 crew.
The Canoe Racing New Zealand (CRNZ) selection was a red letter day - the biggest-ever female kayaking Olympic team -16 years after Erin Taylor blazed the trail in Beijing. Carrington has been the catalyst, catapulting the sport to a new level.
“I definitely can’t take all the credit but I have obviously been there from a long time ago and they all think I’m much older,” laughed Carrington. “It’s been really special. It’s amazing to have the support and create a system that can look after more paddlers, with the resource, the knowledge. It is very different now. And it has been really important to me to be a part of people’s journey, being in the same boat with them but also supporting them in their dreams.”
While Carrington won’t be able to seek a fourth consecutive K1 200m gold, after politics saw the shorter event scratched from the Games schedule, she will be the K1 500m favourite and also be expected to drive the team boats to podium finishes. Her feats are almost taken for granted by the New Zealand public, which can’t be easy.
The New Zealand women’s canoe sprint team for the 2024 Paris Olympics (from left): Lisa Carrington, Alicia Hoskin, Tara Vaughan, Olivia Brett, Aimee Fisher and Lucy Matehaere. Photo / Photosport
“Sometimes I don’t think I notice the pressure until I am in a tight spot,” admitted Carrington. “It doesn’t help having won multiple medals before but for me it is making sure I don’t limit myself from what is possible. It’s obvious from past performance there will be pressure but it is about me accepting that I have done things and people are going to be watching... but it also brings more support, which is a really cool thing.”
And Carrington is still finding improvement, still maintaining a gap on her rivals. Her six-day-a-week training regime is brutal - and has been for years - but motivation is not a problem.
“Being a part of sport is a privilege,” said Carrington. “To physically be able to do the things I can do is really special so I want to keep doing it - and I love doing it. The motivation comes from knowing there is more I can learn and I would hate to have not squeezed as much as I can out of sport.”
Already our most decorated Olympian, Carrington is expected to retire after Paris but remains coy on her plans.
“Every Olympics has been a privilege,” said Carrington. “With sport, you never know if you might be injured one day or if you can get back to it. I know how finite it is, how special it is, so at the moment I am just focusing on Paris - that is the most important thing.”
For Fisher, her selection completes a rollercoaster few years, after she left the national programme before the Tokyo Olympics following a dispute with CRNZ. Bridges have steadily been rebuilt, which offers her a new chapter, after she competed at the 2016 Games as a 21-year-old.
“It’s so special,” reflected Fisher. “It was special back then but now - it means so much. There has been a lot of sacrifice and a lot of hard work and I get to go and represent my people. There was always that faith that I would be back and that it wasn’t over for me, [though] certainly there were moments where it wavered, where I did think maybe it was the end of the road for me.”
Matehaere was also letting the occasion sink in, after completing the “most interviews I have done in my life” with a vast media pack.
”Wow - this is happening,” said the Dunedin-born paddler. “Suddenly I’ve gone from being someone who paddles on the lake to someone who is going to the Olympics.”
The team depart for Europe on Saturday. They will compete at two World Cup meets, along with a series of camps on the continent, ahead of Paris, with the kayaking regatta to start on August 6.
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist since 2005, winning several national awards and covering Olympics, Fifa World Cups and America’s Cup campaigns. He has also reported on the Warriors and NRL for more than a decade.
