Kiwi canoe star Lisa Carrington is well on track for a ninth world title, after qualifying fastest through the K1 200m heats at Szeged, Hungary.
Carrington, 30, is shooting for three gold medals at the world championship regatta and stamped her dominance early in her favoured event, clocking 38.53s to progress to the Saturday's semi-finals (NZT).
Her time was more than half a second faster than closest rivals Marta Walczykiewicz of Poland (39.20s), Swede Linnea Stensils (39.21s) and Spain's Teresa Portela.
Also among the qualifiers to move on was Dane Emma Aastrand Jorgenson, whom Carrington beat by almost two seconds to retain her crown in Portugal last year.
The Kiwi has not lost a major K1 200m race since 2011, adding Olympic gold at London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 during that period.
At Szeged, she will also contest the K4 500m heats, along with Aimee Fisher, Caitlin Ryan and Kayla Imrie, on Friday morning and K1 500m heats on Friday night.
Newshub.
