Impressive Kiwi K4 crew charge into the semifinals

Another Carrington medal looks to be in the offing for New Zealanders

This morning was pretty daunting waking up but I have so much faith in these girls. I can draw on their strength.

Lisa Carrington

The New Zealand women’s kayak team is enjoying the power of four blade drive after qualifying for the semifinals of the K4 500m and giving Lisa Carrington a shot at a fourth medal at these Olympic Games.

The team finished an impressive second in their heat behind Hungary, who are probably the gold medal favourites.

Carrington, her gold medal K2 partner Caitlin Regal, Teneale Hatton and Alicia Hoskin led from the start and for much of the race before being overhauled at the end.

The quartet seemed to revel being in a boat together.

“It’s pretty cool to finally be able to get into that big boat,” said Regal. “We’ve all been in different events but we’ve stayed tight as a team. It was good to get out on the water again [yesterday] and do ourselves proud.”

Hoskin added that it was a great way to finish a spectacular week and took confidence from seeing what Carrington and Regal had achieved.

“Seeing these girls out there crushing it in K1 and K2 gives you confidence to get in the boat with them. They’ve had plenty of practice in the 500 these last few days. Certainly gives me confidence to jump into the boat with them.”

Regal was rapt all four were together and in contention.

“There’s something pretty special about combining forces at the end of the week. This is our last event . . . it’s cool to do it all together. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves.”

Carrington admitted it was hard to drag herself back out on the water after a hectic schedule that delivered her third gold medal in as many days on Thursday.

“This morning was pretty daunting waking up but I have so much faith in these girls. I can draw on their strength. I trust them so much. The team has been so amazing and it’s so easy to just get out there.

“This crew . . . we haven’t had an international race before, so we were going into the unknown a little bit. It was just good to get that start and have a good rhythm throughout the race. I’m so proud of these girls. And I’m just so excited to finish off the Olympics with these girls.”

It was Carrington’s 10th race in five days, and it was the first time she did not finish across the line first.