"GOAT in the boat" Carrington wins again as canoe sprint kicks off

New Zealand's five-time Olympic champion Lisa Carrington got off to another winning start as the canoe sprint events got underway at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium on Tuesday, coming first in both the two- and four-person kayak heats.

Known back home as "the GOAT (greatest of all time) in the boat", Carrington first led her four-woman crew to victory in the first 500-metre kayak heat before winning the kayak double heat a couple of hours later.

Taking place at the same venue east of Paris as the rowing regatta which ended on Saturday, Serbia got proceedings underway quickly, setting an Olympic record of 1:20.99 in the four-man kayak to beat Spain's previous best mark of 1:21.65 from the Tokyo Games.

In the second heat, reigning champions Germany broke the record again with a time of 1:20.51 in perfect early conditions, and they qualified directly for the final with second-placed Spain, with the rest of the field headed to the quarterfinals.

The morning programme offered a mix of kayak and canoe races for two- and four-person crews over a distance of 500m, with athletes sitting in kayaks with a two-sided paddle and kneeling in the canoes while using a single paddle.

China's reigning women's Olympic canoe champions Xu Shixiao and Sun Mengya won their heat by more than a second from the Ukrainian crew of Liudmyla Luzan and Anastasiia Rybachok, but it was the Canadian pair of Sloan Mackenzie and Katie Vincent that set the fastest time of 1:54.16, an Olympic record.

Sun said that she and Xu are aware of the threat posed by a high-quality field, but that they were trying to put that to one side as they execute their race plans.

"It's obvious that we have a lot of pressure at these Olympic Games, but the things that we are prepared to do is just to show our best, to try our best, with no regrets," she said.

The Australian pair of Tom Green and Jean van der Westhuyzen, who won their kayak heat, summed up the desire needed to win the short, intense races at the flat-water venue.

"We kind of have a little motto. We just want to be like a dog on a bone out there, we just want to go for it," Van der Westhuyzen said.

"We have been racing this race from the back to give ourselves a chance. Whether we come first or last, at least we know we tried."

The sprint racing continues on Wednesday, with the first medals set to be decided on Thursday.