Kiwi crews confident of success taking on the world
You don’t often hear New Zealand athletes singing their own praises before embarking on a world championship campaign.
The usual philosophy is lie low, don’t get ahead of themselves and go about their business under the radar.
The four- strong women’s canoeing squad are in France preparing for the world championships in the Czech Republic next month, coming off a hugely impressive performance at the two World Cup regattas in May.
They certainly aren’t overconfident but equally there’s a belief that they are in good shape to produce a quality performance at the worlds.
“Certainly New Zealand is the envy of a number of countries because we have a number of very good girls — not just good — and they’re all able to paddle together in different K2s and the K4, and you don’t often have that. New Zealand are in a very good spot,” national coach Gordon Walker said yesterday.
Double Olympic champion Lisa Carrington remains the star turn but Caitlin Ryan and Aimee Fisher, who is at the world junior championships in Romania this week, enjoyed golden success in World Cups at Portugal and Hungary, while Kayla Imrie has been tried in the important No 1 seat for the K4 that won both 500m finals on the cup circuit.
Walker has locked in Carrington and Ryan, who train together at North Shore’s Lake Pupuke, for the K2 500m, while Carrington will race the K1 200m, her specialist event, and the K1 500m, where she won bronze at the Rio Olympics last year, as well at the four- seater.
Walker’s specialist role with Carrington has now been enlarged and he will oversee the squad in the wake of national coach Rene Olsen’s resignation in June.
Walker was impressed with Car- rington’s workload and performance in Europe where, at one point, she won three golds in the space of a little over an hour in Portugal.
“It was pretty busy for her. There were a lot of things she needed to do physically but also mentally, getting her head around different combinations. But she’s at a high level most of the time so it wasn’t too surprising. But it’s more the other ones are doing very well and that’s really encouraging.”
Walker said to produce quality results at the worlds, “we have to make sure we all take that on as a project, not just one person.
“All of us need to work to make sure a busy schedule is manageable,” she said.
One of the important pieces of business in the leadup to the worlds is sorting out the seating arrangements in the K4.
But Walker is coy on his thinking at this point, preferring to wait until they’ve got some quality training done in warmer European climes.
They will have a few days in Munich, at the Feldmoching Olympic rowing course from 1972, scene of one of New Zealand’s most celebrated Olympic victories, by the rowing eight, before heading to Le Templesur- Lot, a village between Bordeaux and Toulouse in the south- west of France for a fortnight. Then it’s back to Munich for another 10 days before heading to Racice.