Bay kayakers continue to shine

New Zealand's Olympic-bound women's K4 kayakers continued to shine on the World Cup circuit in Europe yesterday.

Bay of Plenty's Jaimee Lovett and Aimee Fisher took gold in the non-Olympic K2 200m final, before combining with Caitlin Ryan and Kayla Imrie for another impressive K4 500m outing at Racice in the Czech Republic.


Aimee Fisher (left) and Jaimee Lovett on their way to victory in the K2 200m final at the World Cup event in Racice, Czech Republic, overnight. Photo: Balint Vekassy/www.canoephotography.com.

That's the event they'll be specialising in at the Rio Games and they showed they remain on track, finishing second in their heat to qualify directly for tonight's final.

The Kiwi quartet were 1.866secs behind the strong Ukrainian team - winners of the gold at last week's World Cup 1 in Germany - finishing in 1min 37.834secs, clear of the German crew.

Lovett and Fisher, meanwhile, rocketed out to a fast start in the K2 200m final, pulling inexorably away to win in a slick 37.835sec time.

They were comfortably clear of China's Wenjun Ren and Qing Ma, with Argentina's Sabrina Ines Ameghino and Maria Magdelena Garro third.

This weekend is the K4 crew's last major outing before Rio, electing to miss next week's World Cup 3 in Portugal.

Fellow Olympians Lisa Carrington and Marty McDowell will race in Portugal after skipping Racice. In Carrington's absence, K1 200m rivals Inna Osypenko Radomska (Azerbaijan) and reigning European champion Sarah Guyot (France) fought out last night's final, with Guyot winning in 39.920secs.

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