Lisa Carrington and Alicia Hoskin have made it two gold medals in as many days at the Paris Olympics.
Carrington went back-to-back in the women's K2 500m with Hoskin at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium on Friday, 24 hours after they were part of the women's K4 500m boat that won gold.
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The K2 500m final was never a contest as Carrington and Hoskin immediately created a gap on the rest of the field.
The Kiwi pair surged to a half-boat-length lead as they went through the 250m in 46.89 seconds and continued to pull away.
With no esasing up, Carrington and Hoskin clocked 1 minute 37.28 seconds to win by one-and-a-half boat lengths, just slightly slower than the time Carrington and Caitlin Regal managed to win the gold in Tokyo three years ago.
Carrington said that crossing the line her immediate emotion was not joy or relief but that it was "so cool that we could do it together".
Hoskin said they had a definite plan and had to trust their process and preparation.
"When the body started hurting we had to trust our technique and preparation. A lot of heart went into that and we had a really good time together."
The windy conditions were challenging, but Hoskin said they'd prepared for that in training.
"Training on Lake Pupuke in the winter, we paddled in strong winds, crosswinds, tailwinds. We were ready."
New Zealand became just the third nation to repeat as Olympic champions in the women's K2 500m, following the Soviet Union in 1972-76 and Hungary in 2004-08.
Carrington, NZ's most-decorated Olympian, moved to seven gold medals and a bronze from four Olympics, and has one last chance to add to that in the women's K1 500m - against teammate Aimee Fisher - on Saturday.
Earlier, the pair were pushed by the German boat but comfortably won and advanced from their semifinal race, clocking 1:38.52.
Meanwhile, Kurtis Imrie and Hamish Legarth missed out on the men's K2 500m final after finishing seventh in their semifinal in 1:30.26.
Relegated to the B Final, the pair were off the pace again, eventually coming through to cross the line sixth in 1:32.09, good for 14th overall.
Imrie and Legarth were part of the men's K4 500m boat, along with Max Brown and Grant Clancy, which finished eighth in the final on Thursday.
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