Cup haul augurs well for Rio

Three medals at the opening World Cup meet of the year have New Zealand’s kayakers licking their lips about Rio.

Lisa Carrington won gold and silver at the canoe sprint event in Duisburg, Germany, in the women’s K1 200 and K1 500 respectively.

The Kiwi women’s K4 crew of Jaimee Lovett, Caitlin Ryan, Aimee Fisher and Kayla Imrie won bronze in the non-Olympic 200m event and were a close-up fifth in the 500m final.

Carrington was pushed into second place in her K1 500 final on Sunday night by Hungary’s Danuta Kozak.

The 2012 London Olympic gold medalist in the K1 200 class finished 1.125 seconds behind Kozak, whose winning time for the 500 metres in Duisburg was one minute 47.071 seconds.

Kozak is a double world champion at the distance, having beaten Carrington in 2012 and 2013, but raced in team boats for much of last season. She helped Hungary win world championship gold in the K2 and silver in the K4 in Milan last year, while Carrington created history by winning the 200m-500m K1 double at the world champs.

Now Carrington knows she has a major rival for the K1 500 gold at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August, with Kozak likely to compete in all three 500m events in Rio – the K1, K2 and K4.

‘‘The race went really well,’’ an upbeat Carrington said. ‘‘I stuck to my race plan and did what I needed to do and what I could do. I’m racing the best paddlers in the world and the quality is extremely high.

‘‘Danuta, she’s an Olympic champion in the 500 from London ... it’s such a great opportunity to race and practise against these girls here.

‘‘It’s nice to get that one done and figure out what we can work on. Really happy with the race, happy with the weekend.’’

Carrington won the women’s K1 200m final on Saturday night. It was her 12th-consecutive major title in the K1 200 discipline, the one she captured gold at in London almost four years ago.

She will skip the second World Cup event in Racice, Czech Republic, starting on Friday night next week and return for the final World Cup meet in Portugal in early June.

The NZ women’s K4 combination capped off a promising meet with bronze in the 200m final, behind winners Belarus and silver medalists Ukraine.

Earlier, they were fifth in their Olympic 500m event after making a fast start before slightly dropping off the pace mid-race then finishing strongly to narrowly miss a bronze medal.

Ukraine snatched gold in a photo-finish from Belarus, with a winning time of 1:32.046s. Poland were third, Britain fourth and New Zealand fifth, just 0.352s behind Poland.

‘‘We’re really stoked with our races and how things are going,’’ Ryan said. ‘‘We know we’ve got time until Rio so we just wanted to see if we could give the start a really good crack, pushing it out to the 150m mark and trying to stay with Belarus, which we were able to do.’’

The K4 will contest the second World Cup in Racice and want to continue the rapid progress they’ve made over the past 12 months.

‘‘We’ll be focusing on the end of the race up to Rio and staying strong as a team but it’s all coming together well.

‘‘We’re definitely on track and we’ve got time and we’re patient – we’re really excited.’’