Lisa Carrington and Aimee Fischer. Photo: Photosport / RNZ
Analysis - Not long after Dame Lisa Carrington cemented her status as New Zealand's most decorated Olympian at the Tokyo Games, little-known Kiwi paddler Aimee Fisher took to the water on Lake Bagsvaerd, Denmark for the canoe sprint world championships.
With Carrington opting to give the 2021 world championships a miss and take a well-earned break after earning three gold medals in Tokyo, Fisher had a rare opportunity to contest the world title in the single-seat event.
The result shocked the canoe sprint world. Fisher upstaged both the silver and bronze medallist from the Tokyo Olympics to power her way to world championship win in the K1 500m. The world title passed from the hands of one Kiwi to the next.
A year earlier Fisher, a Rio Olympian, stepped away from Canoe Racing NZ's high-performance programme due to concerns about the safety of the environment. She later withdrew herself from selection contention for the Tokyo Olympics following a seven-month stand-off with the national body.
Lisa Carrington with her Olympic gold medal for the K1 500 at Tokyo 2020. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Fisher's performance in Denmark suggested she had almost certainly turned her back on an Olympic medal when she walked away.
On Saturday night, barring any extraordinary upsets in the semifinals, Dame Lisa Carrington and Aimee Fisher will go head-to-head for Olympic gold in the women's K1 500m.
RNZ will be live blogging the Olympics from 7pm.
The showdown has long been earmarked as a potentially historic day in New Zealand sport, with recent results suggesting the two Kiwis are a strong chance to share the podium in Paris.
If Carrington and Fisher could pull off a one-two finish on the Vaires-sur-Marne course in Paris it would be the first time since Hamish Carter and Bevan Docherty in the triathlon in Athens 2004 that two New Zealanders have medalled in the same event at Olympic Games.
The big question is: what order they will finish in?
Carrington, who already has two gold medals to her name in Paris - in the K4 500m and the K2 500m - to add to her five golds and one bronze from her previous three Olympics, is peerless in the sport.
Her sustained dominance over more than a decade will likely never be matched.
Lisa Carrington competes in the women's kayak single 500m heats canoe sprint on August 7, 2024. Photo: AFP/BERTRAND GUAY
Most recently, Carrington's biggest threat to her long-standing reign in the single boat has come domestically.
In the final two World Cup events in the lead-up to the Paris Games, Fisher scored two breakthrough victories over Carrington. The first of which, in Szeged, Hungary, set a new world's best time.
The shock results set up one of the most compelling storylines for New Zealand at these Olympic Games.
Two very different Olympic styles
But this clash is about more than a battle for Olympic gold.
It is, in many ways, a battle of philosophies: the system versus individualism.
While Fisher has since rejoined CRNZ's high-performance programme after reaching an uneasy truce with the national body, she has retained some level of autonomy within the environment.
She designs and writes her own programmes, with input from coach Chris Mehak and other support staff at CRNZ.
Aimee Fisher competes in the women's kayak single 500m heats canoe sprint competition on August 7, 2024. Photo: AFP/BERTRAND GUAY
Fisher's programme is a significant departure from what she was previously doing in the national squad, where she says the focus was on endurance. Essentially, a lot of kilometres and a lot of threshold work.
It has been an undeniably successful formula for Carrington, already New Zealand's most decorated Olympian heading into these Games.
But at 1.81m tall and with a build she describes as "Amazonian", Fisher is a very different make-up to Carrington. She now has a more strength-based approach, incorporating more resistance work. The goal is to increase her distance per stroke and sustain that power over a 500m race.
And yet, Fisher's programme still has a homespun feel to it when compared to Carrington, who has the full might of the New Zealand high-performance system behind her.
Judging by the performances of Carrington on the Vaires-sur-Marne course in Paris this week, her preparation has been flawless.
New Zealand canoe sprint paddlers Aimee Fisher and Dame Lisa Carrington. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Her win alongside teammate Alicia Hoskin in the K2 500m final on Friday was particularly instructive. The pair dominated the field, finishing two boat lengths ahead of the pack. It was a slaughter on the water.
By contrast, we have seen little of Aimee Fisher at this regatta.
She and teammate Lucy Matahaere failed to advance to the semifinals in the K2 on day one. Since then she has been able to focus entirely on Saturday's K1 final.
A showdown three years in the making.