This summer has evolved into a kind of second honeymoon for Dame Lisa Carrington and her husband Michael “Bucky” Buck. The couple have popped into corners of Aotearoa they’ve never been before. They’ve gone surfing, fished and swum with monster snapper, and relaxed with family and friends at their Ōhope beach house.
They even snuck in a quick trip to Fiji, then on to Portugal, where Lisa received one of the highest honours in world sport. But Bucky jokes he isn’t sure whether they even had a first honeymoon after they married on Ōhope Beach in 2022, when New Zealand’s greatest Olympian was deep in training for her next world canoe sprint championship and her fourth Games.
The world’s fastest woman on water, Lisa usually finds it difficult to suddenly go slow. But this summer is different. For the first time, our queen of the kayak has returned from another successful Olympic campaign and been able to unwind, taking things slowly while she considers what’s next in her unparalleled sporting career and whether it’s time to start a family. Decisions, understandably, she wants to take her time mulling over.

Back in Paris in August, Lisa became the most successful Olympian in New Zealand sporting history, spectacularly clinching three more golds across the K1, K2 and K4 boats to bring her career total to nine medals.
Dubbed “the GOAT [greatest of all time] in a boat”, she then returned home to Auckland. There, she and Bucky reunited with their beloved dog, four-year-old cavoodle Colin. “He’s a cheeky version of myself,” Lisa says. “He and Bucky are where all my love goes.”
The couple has since taken time to enjoy her success. They’ve toured the country promoting Lisa’s first children’s book, Lisa Carrington Chases a Champion, visiting parts of Aotearoa she’d never seen before.
Then they completely slowed down at their special place, a concrete-block beach house in her Bay of Plenty hometown of Ōhope, to enjoy Christmas with both of their families. And to paint a few skirting boards as they gradually renovate the home.

“We’ve never really had this sort of time together and it’s been great,” says Bucky. He has also taken time out of his banking career to enjoy this idyllic time with Lisa. “After what she achieved in Paris, Lisa has been really content, and open to share her story and her success. That’s been so cool to see. We’ve been able to experience different parts of the country and meet new people. And that relaxed vibe has carried through to our family and our personal life.”
Now 35, Lisa is thinking seriously about having children.
“It’s 100 per cent on my mind and, being older, it’s something we have to figure out,” she confesses.
It’s just one of the myriad of things Lisa has to now weigh up – whether to aim for a fifth Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028, whether to take a break from competition to start a family or whether to retire from the sport after 14 years at the very top.
“What next?” is a question Lisa says she’s been asked every day since returning home from Paris. She feels adamant no one can hurry her.
“I don’t enjoy hiding things, but at the same time, I’m not quite ready to share. Especially when I’m not even totally sure,” she explains.
The call of the water has, of course, drawn her back to daily paddles on Auckland’s Lake Pupuke. She does it to keep in shape, but also to stay in touch with her K4 teammates. The crew have grown so close over the past three years.

“It’s so important to stay connected with the girls – we achieved such a big thing over there,” Lisa says of the gold medal she won with Alicia Hoskin, Tara Vaughan and Olivia Brett in the K4 500m final, New Zealand’s first-ever Olympic medal in the event. “It’s nice to get out there and have a bit of routine in this in-between phase in my life. I just have to make sure I don’t fall back into my old way of needing things to be perfect.”
But it’s obvious Lisa – who just before Christmas was crowned overall Māori Sportsperson of the Year for the ninth time – is thriving without the pressure of a major event hanging over her.
She laughs, “My family are like, ‘Oh, this is a different person!’ Looking back to last summer, when I pushed through Christmas and worked really hard before Paris, I couldn’t enjoy the break or be really happy to see lots of family and friends because I was just tired most of the time. It’s been great not to have that regime or think, ‘You’ve got to perform! You’ve got the Olympics coming up!’”
Instead, Lisa’s been able to do other things she loves – ocean swimming, fishing, surfing, walking Colin on the beach and cooking for her extended whānau over Christmas.
“I’m trying not to be too bossy with Mum,” she tells. “She’s so lovely and polite, and I’ve got to learn to let it go, like she does. It’s so nice to go down to Ōhope, where things are slower. You just don’t realise how a place can make you feel so different.
“I really love my home in Auckland – I love my friends and what I get to do living there. But when I go down to the beach, I immediately feel like, ‘Wow! This is such a different, calm place.’ It’s what I need.”

New rituals
Lisa and Bucky returned to the Northern Hemisphere briefly before Christmas. This time though, not to compete, but to receive one of the Olympic movement’s highest honours, the ANOC Outstanding Sporting Career Award, in Cascais, Portugal. The couple stopped over in Fiji on their way, where Lisa spoke at business retreat Nurture Change. But the eight-time Olympic champion admits it’s been a challenge to decelerate from the hectic pace she’s become accustomed to as an elite athlete.
“I can feel when I’m starting to get a bit rushed or a bit quick,” she says. “I tell myself, ‘Lisa, you’re just thinking too much,’ so I’ll jump into an ice bath or do some meditation. That’s a really good starter for me. It’s not going to fix my thinking, but it just starts me slowing down and helps me get a bit of perspective.”

Lisa has also started making Bucky a cup of coffee each morning – that is, if she’s not getting up before dawn to go paddling! It’s a simple act of kindness that’s helped her to “think not only about myself”, she says.
She usually returns to find Colin has taken over her spot in the bed.
“He loves a sleep-in,” Lisa laughs, joking that Colin is her “support dog” and is integral to the household. “I just love having him in my life – having someone else to look after.
“He’s such a character – he gives lots of love and he’s heaps of fun. Before I became a pet owner, I would unfairly judge people for being hardcore about their pets. But now I get it. These furry little animals are an awesome part of your family.”
Lisa developed a strong bond with Colin after he joined their family during the first Covid lockdown in 2020. But when she returns after long periods away competing, she has to win back Colin’s affections “with treats, cuddles and walks – to be the favourite again”.

If both Lisa and Bucky are overseas – as they were for three months around the Paris Olympics – they get pet sitters to stay at their North Shore home to take care of Colin.
He laps up the attention that comes with being the pet of a Kiwi legend. A brand ambassador for pet healthcare brand NexGard, he even has his own gold medal he wears on his collar. Someone even commissioned an artist in the Coromandel township of Whitianga to paint a portrait of Colin wearing one of Lisa’s gold medals!
The family’s escape to Whitianga in September was a classic example of the way Kiwis have embraced Lisa’s success and want to acknowledge the joy she’s brought to the nation. Local personality Ron Morgan invited Lisa, Bucky and Colin to stay at the Coromandel beach town, then put out a call to the community to get behind their visit to celebrate what the paddler had achieved in Paris.
It was the first time Lisa had been to Whitianga. “The response was insane – we had to decline more things on offer than we could take up,” says Bucky. “The generosity of the community, and the willingness to give and to meet Lisa was phenomenal.”
The couple was treated to meals at local restaurants, with platters of fresh kaimoana, a tour of the waterways and a trip on a glass-bottom boat, where they leapt into the ocean and were surrounded by inquisitive giant snapper. “To be able to say yes to things like that has been so nice for Lisa,” says Bucky. “She’s been able to really engage with other Kiwis.”

Lisa has also been able to use her new book as a vehicle to see the country and chat to people. “It’s been a great medium to be able to reach the rest of New Zealand,” she says. “I don’t find promoting myself super-easy, so it’s been fun saying, ‘Hey, this is what I made.’ It just takes the spotlight off me.”
Lisa Carrington Chases a Champion is the story of eight-year-old Lisa grappling with self-doubt and a fear of failure going into her first big surf competition, and the encouragement she receives from her whānau, her coach and a talented paddler named Māia. It’s a story of overcoming obstacles that’s extremely close to Lisa’s heart. It was important to her the book was published in both English and te reo Māori.
Soon after she returned from the Olympics, Lisa – who is of Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki and Ngāti Porou descent – launched the book at Wellington’s Te Papa museum. She felt genuinely surprised by the hundreds of people, many of them children, who came to hear her read from the book and sign their copies.
“I was thinking beforehand, ‘Why would people turn up?’ But it was really cool to engage and be relevant to the younger group. I didn’t properly realise how people felt about what I’ve done. It was really special to be able to be available.”

She’s keen to write more in the series of young Lisa’s challenges – work is underway on a second book, to be released mid-2025 – and would like to find time to learn more te reo. But it’s hard to commit to studying when you’re deeply entrenched in an Olympic campaign, as Lisa has already found. With a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in politics and Māori studies, she was halfway through a post-graduate diploma in psychology before putting her education on hold.
“I found it really tricky to manage both uni and sport,” she admits. “But I really enjoyed that feeling at the end of every semester, especially when I passed a paper. It exposed me to a different aspect of life that I don’t get when I’m just in my own lane, doing sport. So it was a really cool way to drag me out. I’m definitely passionate about the way we think and I’d like to finish the degree. But then I think, ‘What if I studied interior design?’ I really love reading house magazines too!”
It’s yet another decision, alongside whether to aim for her fifth Games and becoming the most decorated canoe athlete in Olympic history outright – she currently shares that honour with German great Birgit Fischer. When it comes to the label of “the greatest of all time”, Lisa laughs, “It’s not something that I introduce myself as, but I realise it’s an honour. It’s very cool.”

Soon after winning her eighth Olympic gold medal in Paris, in a brilliant showdown to overtake her Hungarian arch-rival Tamara Csipes in the K1 500m, Lisa hinted it was “pretty enticing” to continue her competitive career, especially as she’s got stronger as she’s got older.
“After only having two and a half years to prepare for Paris – after the Tokyo Games and the Auckland lockdowns – there’s a really long runway to the next Olympics in LA,” she says. “We were so intense for Paris and I think there’s a point where you have to go, ‘Whoa, you gotta slow down!’
“It would be easy to slot right back into what we were doing, but I can’t do that or I’d just run out of steam. And that’s the same for life too, so I don’t want to rush into anything. I want to make some good calls. Maybe it’s time to reassess and really question myself.”
Lisa makes it clear she has to be all-in if she decides to return to international competition. But if she chooses to retire, her support for the New Zealand team and for the sport of canoe sprint will always be there.

Time to retire?
There’s not a lot Lisa hasn’t achieved at the Olympics. Since winning her first gold medal at the age of 23 at the 2012 London Games, she’s carried the New Zealand flag into the closing ceremony in Paris – alongside canoe slalom gold medallist Finn Butcher – and has an Olympic record to her name. When asked what more she could gain from another Olympics – other than a silver to complete the full complement of medals – Lisa reckons it would be to go to a Games as a spectator.
She explains, “I see my family and friends at the Olympics, and they love it. Well, they might not love watching when I’m racing – the feelings they get are quite intense – but when they get to hang out with the other supporters and go to lots of different sports, they love it. And that’s probably the experience that’s missing for me. It would be really cool to go back and just support.”
In these quieter times, Lisa has been reflecting on what retirement would mean to her and she realises it’s not something she fears, in part because she’s recently seen her parents, Pat and Glynis, retire from careers as schoolteachers.

“I have such an identity and a connection to being a sportsperson, to being a kayaker,” she reflects. “It’s such a big part of who I am. I try to stay uncoupled from the sport, but in reality, what makes me good is that I love it. I turn up and I want to be there.
“But I’m trying to not need it to be my whole identity. For me, it’s recognising what those parts are that I’m attaching to that I think I need. Is it to feel like I can still be the best? Or do I need to feel strong? Do I need to be the fittest? Because all those little things that you do on the daily to make you feel like you’re progressing as an athlete, you put a lot of weight on them.”
Lisa is working with her psychologist and her coach Gordon Walker to disentangle herself from that need to be the best. “To be honest, I love that feeling of being able to be strong and to progress. I also think it’s okay to miss those things when you retire,” she says.

The desire to start a family is very much front and centre for Lisa and Bucky. She admits, “A lot of my friends have kids or are pregnant. It’s been really cool to be surrounded by families and see all the stages. We’re in a time in sport where, as female athletes, we’re transitioning to understanding more about our ability to have children. So yeah, it’s 100 per cent on my mind.”
While there’s never been a Kiwi female kayaker who’s returned to the top of the sport after having kids, Lisa has been in awe of her Olympic teammates Lucy Spoors and Brooke Francis, who won gold in rowing’s double sculls event in Paris as new mums.
“I think they’re incredible, and it’s been so cool to watch them come back and do so well,” she smiles. “Its hard to imagine how tough it’s been for them. I was talking to Lucy the other day and she said every time that her son Rupert goes into the rowing building at Lake Karapiro, she just feels so good because he’s so loved by everyone. It’s so sweet.

“Coming through sport, that hasn’t been common at all. The odd female kayaker overseas has had children and come back. So, I haven’t really thought it was a possibility.”
But with almost four years until the next Olympics, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for Lisa to start a family and return to race in Los Angeles at the age of 39. Whether she makes the call to finally put down her paddle or to carry on, she knows things won’t stay the same.
“There will always be changes – and I enjoy a challenge, as long as it’s framed up properly,” she tells. “That’s why I have good people to help me. Because it doesn’t always come naturally to me when something is super-hard.”

And its why Lisa knows she will always support others in sport.
“Bucky and I were watching our niece compete in the surf-lifesaving pool champs and it was so awesome,” she enthuses. “All the parents were there supporting and cheering, but the sisters and brothers were looking really bored. That was me, watching my older brother compete. Mum would just give me some money so I could get a drink and go away!
“But it made me remember that sport is really cool in the way it brings people together. I saw a reflection of myself when I was 10 years old, doing what they were doing, but things have really changed. Even the slowest kid was better than me!”