Max Brown and Kurtis Imrie competing in the K2 1,000 at the Tokyo Olympics. Photo: Steve McArthur / www.photosport.nz
Canoe sprint athletes Max Brown and Kurtis Imrie will compete in their second Olympic Games, alongside team mates and Games debutants' Hamish Legarth and Grant Clancy.
It is a busy Olympic schedule for the athletes who while selected in the K4, will also will compete across the K2 and the C2 disciplines at the games.
The quartet head to Paris in good form, with the K4 team breaking the 1:20s time barrier for the first time in competition in 2023.
In Paris, Imrie will pair with Legarth in the Men's K2 500m, while Brown will team up with Clancy in the C2 500m.
Both Brown and Imrie made their Olympic debuts at Tokyo 2020 where they finished fifth in the K2 1000 final.
That event is no longer on the Olympic schedule.
"Going to one Olympics is incredible and this one's going to be on another level," Imrie said.
"It's special for us to be going as a K4. It's been 32 years since a male K4 crew has represented New Zealand at Olympic level so it's great to get the big boat back on water."
The last New Zealand K4 men's crew to compete at an Olympics was Richard Boyle, Finn O'Connor, Stephen Richards and Mark Scheib who competed in Barcelona in 1992.
In Los Angeles in 1984 the men's crew of Grant Bramwell, Ian Ferguson, Paul MacDonald, and Alan Thompson won gold in the K4 1000.
The team head to Europe next week for their final preparations.
The Olympic canoe sprint events begin in Paris on 6 August and run until 10 August at the new architecturally-designed Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, the first water complex of its kind in Europe.
Zach Ferkins has been selected as reserve for all three boats.
-RNZ