Bay of Plenty kayaker Lisa Carrington has won another gold medal on the water for New Zealand at the Olympics.
The former world champion went into the women's K1 200m canoe sprint final at Eton Dorney with the fastest qualifying time.
She made a solid start and was in third place midway through the race, then powered home over the last 100 metres to overtake her rivals and bag the gold medal.
Inna Osypenko-Radomska from the Ukraine won silver and Natasa Douchev-Janics won bronze.
Carrington said she lined up at the start thinking she was just going to go as hard as she could.
She said she always knew she had a gold medal performance in her and she simply had to stick to her game plan to win.
"I just did what comes naturally for me and took it stroke by stroke. I knew I had everyone from back home behind me and I gave it my all," she said.
Coach Gordon Walker said she has shown enormous maturity under immense pressure and didn't panic at the crunch point.
Carrington, 23, has only been racing the 200m as her specialist event for just under 18 months.
Her medal is the fifth gold medal for New Zealand at the London Olympics.
New Zealand now has a total of 13 medals - five gold, three silver and five bronze.
Canoe team manager Grant Restall said there's no doubt Carrington will be in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 to defend her title.