Multiple world champion and defending Olympic K1 200m champion Lisa Carrington spearheads the New Zealand kayaking team, which includes the first K4 crew in 24 years.
New Zealand canoe sprint champion Lisa Carrington. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Five of the six New Zealand canoe sprint athletes selected to compete at Rio will make their Games debut.
Carrington has high hopes of becoming one of New Zealand's most successful Olympians, eyeing gold in both the K1 200m and K1 500m.
She has been unbeaten in the shorter distance for the last five years and picked up her fourth consecutive world title over the K1 200 distance in Milan last year, after adding the K1 500m world championship crown for the first time.
That double whammy in 2015 helped the 26-year-old overtake Paul MacDonald as New Zealand's most successful world championship canoe racer, with five gold medals, and join him as the only New Zealander to win two golds at the same world championship meet.
New Zealander Lisa Carrington can claim the title of best female paddler in the world. Photo: RNZ / Diego Opatowski
Carrington was also the first woman in 16 years - and only the third in history - to hold both the 200m and 500m titles at the same time.
The Whakatane paddler's list of milestones is now significant.
There are no World Championships in an Olympic year, but Carrington's Rio build-up has been near picture perfect, confirming her status as the best female paddler in the world.
At the opening World Cup of 2016 she won gold in the K1 200 and silver in the K1 500, narrowly losing out to 2012 London Olympic champion Hungary's Danuta Kozak over the longer distance.
Carrington skipped the second World Cup before winning gold in both events at the third and final World Cup in Portugal to rubber stamp her dominance in the final international event before the Olympics.
Carrington is a firm favourite to pick up two golds in Rio.
The other women in the team are Jaimee Lovett, Caitlin Ryan, Aimee Fisher and Kayla Imrie, who will race in the K4 500m.
New Zealand women's K4 Jaimee Lovett (front) and crewmates (from left) Caitlin Ryan, Aimee Fisher and Kayla Imrie. Photo: Jamie Troughton / Dscribe Media
New Zealand last had an Olympic K4 boat in Barcelona in 1992, when Richard Boyle, Finn O'Connor, Stephen Richards, and Mark Scheib made the semi-finals, after earlier men's K4 crews in 1984 and 1988.
Of the 24 New Zealanders who have paddled flat-water kayaks at the Olympic games, only three have been in the women's ranks.
Medal-winners from the final day of the world cup kayaking regatta. (L-R) Lisa Carrington, Caitlin Ryan, Aimee Fisher, Kayla Imrie, Jaimee Lovett and Marty McDowell. Photo: Supplied
The new K4 500 crew won bronze in their final World Cup event before the Olympics and can now be considered a medal chance in Rio.
Carrington and the women's K4 boat are joined in the New Zealand team by men's K1 1000m paddler Marty McDowell, who is competing at his first Olympics.
(L to R) Lisa Carrington, Marty McDowell, Aimee Fisher, Kayla Imrie, Caitlin Ryan and Jaimee Lovett Photo: Photosport
The 29-year-old was born in Porirua and his aim is to reach the final in Rio.