Sport

Dame Lisa Carrington remains at the top of Canoe Sprint

06:29 am on 28 August 2023

File photo. Dame Lisa Carrington Photo:

Dame Lisa Carrington has won her 15th Canoe Sprint World Championship title with victory in the K1 200 on the final day of competition in Germany.

Carrington finished more than a second ahead of second-placed Yale Steinepreis of Australia.

It is the ninth time Carrington has won the event.

It means that New Zealand paddlers have so far qualified four women's spots for next year's Paris Olympics.

Aimee Fisher and Danielle McKenzie finished eighth in the K2 500 final, needing a top six finish to clinch an Olympic berth.

The men's K4 500 just missed out on Olympic qualification over the weekend with these world championships their only chance.

However the women's and men's K2 crews will attempt to gain Olympic qualification at the Oceania Champs in Australia in the new year.

Canoe Racing New Zealand general manager of performance Nathan Luce describes their performance at the regatta as bittersweet.

"We're elated for the women to have done what they did, but we came in with some big ambitions but we didn't quite meet all those objectives.

"We still have quite a bit of work to do over the next few months leading into the Sydney qualifier and if we have a six to eight person team (for the Olympics), we'll be going into those games with three or four medal hopes.

"We have a lot to be proud of and we have a lot to look forward to over the next year."

Also on the final day of the world championships Danielle McKenzie finished 13th in the women's K1 5000 event and Quade Thompson was seventh in the men's K1 5000.

Para-canoeist Scott Martlew qualified for the Paralympics in his KL2 division.