Lisa Carrington pulls out of K4 crew for Szeged World Cup opener with Aimee Fisher stepping in

Dame Lisa Carrington will not line up in the K4 500m for New Zealand at the opening Canoe Sprint World Cup regatta in Szeged this weekend, with Aimee Fisher stepping into the boat in her place.

The 36-year-old, the country’s most decorated Olympian, had been named in the four-strong crew alongside Olivia Brett, Greer Morley and Lucy Matehaere when the squad for the European leg was confirmed earlier this autumn. Fisher, who has spent recent seasons concentrating on single and double boat racing, has now been brought into the K4 line-up. RNZ Sport reports that no reason has been given for the change.

The reshuffle comes a few weeks after Carrington revealed she is expecting her first child, with the baby due in September. She and partner Michael Buck shared the news on social media, and Carrington said at the time that her focus had shifted to navigating the pregnancy while still leaving the door open for a fifth Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

Carrington had indicated she would race the back-to-back World Cup regattas in Hungary and Germany this month before stepping away from competition for the rest of 2026 and through 2027. She is not expected to attend the world championships later in the year. Whether the K4 withdrawal in Szeged is a one-off precaution, a tactical decision by the coaches, or a sign that her racing programme will be lighter than first signalled has not been spelt out by either the athlete or Canoe Racing New Zealand.

For Fisher, the call-up is a notable shift. The Hawkes Bay paddler was the K1 500m world champion in 2021 and has been New Zealand’s go-to single sculler in the post-Tokyo cycle. She will now juggle K4 duties with her individual programme, and is also down to race the K1 500 heats on the opening day in Szeged.

The bigger picture for the women’s K4 is that the boat that won gold in Paris is still in the process of being rebuilt. Alicia Hoskin and Tara Vaughan, both members of the Paris-winning crew alongside Carrington and Brett, are not in the touring squad. Hoskin is recovering from surgery for a rare condition that restricted blood flow to her arm, and has spoken publicly about being unsure whether she can return to Olympic-level training. Hoskin was also Carrington’s K2 partner in Paris, so her absence reverberates across more than one boat.

That has thrust Brett, Morley and Matehaere into roles that would not normally have been theirs at this stage of an Olympic cycle, and pulled Fisher across from her single-boat focus to plug the gap in the four. Coaches will be watching how the temporary K4 combination clicks under racing pressure rather than just on training-camp form.

The eleven-strong New Zealand team in Europe also features Quaid Thompson, who will line up in the men’s K1 1000m and the K1 5000m, while James Munro, Kurtis Imrie, Hamish Legarth and Grant Clancy will contest the men’s K4 500 and split into pairs for the K2 500. Para canoeist Finn Murphy is added to the squad for the Germany leg only.

Szeged itself is a familiar stop for the global flat-water circuit. The southern Hungarian city has hosted multiple world championships and World Cup regattas, and almost 700 athletes from more than 60 countries have arrived for the opening event of what is now a two-year qualification window pointing toward the Los Angeles Games. The International Canoe Federation has flagged the regatta as the formal start of the LA28 qualification race.

For New Zealand, the points and ranking implications are real, even with experimental crews. Olympic boat allocations for 2028 will be shaped over the next two seasons by world championship and World Cup results, and the women’s K4 is a class where New Zealand has set the standard for a decade. Keeping the boat near the front of the international fleet, even while the line-up is in flux, matters more than any individual medal in May.

For Carrington, sitting out the K4 in Szeged is unlikely to change her long-term plan. She has already signalled that 2027 will be a year off racing as she settles into motherhood, and that a return to top-level training will be timed against the LA build-up rather than the next world title. The Hungarian regatta was always going to be one of her last starts in this Olympic cycle, and the New Zealand programme has had several months to plan around her reduced availability.

What is less clear is what shape the K4 takes once Carrington steps out fully. If Hoskin’s recovery does not allow a return to full Olympic loadings, and if Vaughan does not come back into contention, the post-Paris generation of paddlers, headed by Brett, Morley and Matehaere, will need to prove they can hold the boat together at world-cup level on their own. Fisher’s willingness to step across from the single may well be part of that bridge.

Racing in Szeged runs Friday through Sunday, with finals across the Olympic distances in the second half of the weekend. New Zealand’s team then moves on to the second leg of the World Cup in Germany before returning home.

What do you think of the changes to the women’s K4 crew, and how should New Zealand build toward LA28? Leave a comment below and join the discussion.