Aimee Fisher and Dame Lisa Carrington Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Dame Lisa Carrington and Aimee Fisher will both race the K1 500 event at the opening Canoe Sprint World Cup regatta starting in Hungary tonight.
Dame Lisa beat Fisher in a trial at the recent national championships to gain the sole spot for the World Championships later this year, but both are able to compete in the same event at World Cups.
The heats of that event are tonight.
Denmark's Olympic bronze medalist, Emma Astrid Jorgensen, and Tokyo finalists Linnea Stensils of Sweden and Alyce Wood of Australia will be among the biggest threats to the New Zealand duo.
Carrington will also lineup in the K4 500 alongside Alicia Hoskin, Olivia Brett and Tara Vaughan
The 14-strong New Zealand squad has been at a training camp in Hungary for the last two weeks.
"The teams are all in great form," said general manager of Performance Nathan Luce.
"We've had time to adjust to the travel and enjoyed some solid training sessions on the race course in Szolnok.
"The environment has served us well and brought us together as one big team. Our paddlers are ready to put down strong performances".
Also in action on the first day are Ashton Reiser in the men's K1 200m and 500m, Quaid Thompson in the men's K1 1000, Max Brown, Zach Ferkins, Kurtis Imrie and Hamish Legarth in the men's K4 500, Scott Martlew and Corbin Hart in the KL2/KL3 and Peter Cowan and Scott Martlew in the VL3 200m.
The World Championships are in Germany in August where Carrington will defend her K1 500 title.
While five-time Olympic champion Carrington is likely to be in the K1 and K2 crews at next year's Olympics, the New Zealand squad is wanting good performances for the K4 crew this year to qualify that boat for Paris.