Whilst last summer’s ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Milan might not have been the very start of the Road to Rio campaign it was both the Olympic qualification race and a form guide to what might happen in Rio this summer.
 
Every sport has a name which appears with regularity on the winners rostrum.  In women’s sprint canoeing that name Lisa Carrington.
 
In Milan last summer, Carrington became the first New Zealander to win the women’s world K1 500m title.  A day later she extended her domination in the K1 by winning the 200m final.
 
“It’s all about keeping the challenge and trying to get better every year every day,” said Carrington who won the K1 200m title in the London 2012 Olympic Games and will race the double in the Rio Games.
 
“I guess I don’t necessarily aim to win gold medals.  I race for a great performance and the gold medal is the end of whatever outcome that is.”
 
There may not be an exact Carrington equivalent in the men’s ranks but there are several names who manage to dominate their events.
 
In Milan, Denmark’s Rene  Poulsen won the men’s worlds K1 1000m final, beating defending champion Josef Dostal of the Czech Republic on the line, admitting afterwards it had been an ‘incredibly hard’ race. A day later Poulsen added to his stash of gold medals by retaining the men’s K1M 500 title.

 
Meanwhile, in the men’s C1, Germany’s Olympic Champion, Sebastian Brendel, held off a strong challenge from the junior Martin Fuksa (Czech Republic), winning by the slender gap of 0.017 seconds to retain his men’s 1000m title.
 
“It was one of the toughest races this year,” admitted Brendel afterwards.  “As athletes we keep improving and I think next year will be harder than this year, and I also feel that I can be a little bit faster next year.”
 
Last summer in Milan, Canadian Mark De Jonge won the blue ribbon K1M 200m final to defend his title.
 
“It feels pretty good because it has been so close between the top three of us here the entire season,” said De Jonge after beating Maxime Beaumont (France) and Peter Manning (Sweden) into second and third.
 
In the team events at Milan the likeable Australian, Kenny Wallace, took the K2M 500m title with partner Lachlan Tame, adding to the pair’s silver in the 1000m.  
 
Rio will be Wallace’s third Olympics (he won a gold and a bronze at Beijing in 2008) and he will compete in the K4 1000m with Tame, Murray Stewart and Jacob Clear,  attempting to retain the title Australia won in London four years ago.
 
The men’s K2 200m final provided the drama of the first day of mainstream finals.  The Hungarian pair, Sandor Totka and Peter Molnar, crossed the line in first place before race officials declared a false start.  But they kept composed for the next 45 minutes before going on to win the re-run.
 
Hungary maintained its grip on the women’s K2 500, a title they have won eight times in the last eleven world championships, after Gabriella Szabo and Danuta Kozak won the gold.
 
The newly-formed Brazil partnership of Erion de Souza Silva and Quieros Do Santos won the C2M 1000 final. “I am very happy because I won the bronze medal in C1 and now a gold medal in C2, and the 1000 is not my speciality,” said de Souza Silva afterwards.
 
The pair has not reached those heights since but a roaring home crowd in Rio could make all the difference to their performance.