Lisa Carrington has cruised into the final of the K1 500m at the canoe racing world championships in Milan overnight – although a trio of rivals will be waiting eagerly for her once she gets there.

On a brutal day for the New Zealand team, Carrington was again a shining light, winning her heat in 1min 54.291secs, then going nearly five seconds faster to win her semi-final in 1:49.407.

Lisa Carrington is in the final of the K1 500m. Photo: Jamie Troughton.

The 26-year-old wasn't pushed in her semi, with Volha Khudzenka (Belarus) more than a second behind, while three other paddlers recorded faster times in the other semi-finals.

Hungarian Anna Karasz was the quickest qualifier for Saturday's final with a 1:48.113 effort, while Great Britain's Rachel Cawthorn (1:48.750) and China's Yu Zhou (1:48.813) also went quicker than the Kiwi.

Carrington will line up in her K1 200m heats tonight as she chases an historic world championship double.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand males found the going much tougher on the second day of the five-day championship, with Marty McDowell missing out on the K1 1000m semi-finals and Zac Franich and Darryl Fitzgerald finishing sixth in their K2 1000m semi-final.

That's put them in Saturday's C final, with a chance to break into the top-20 in the world. The top 12 K2 crews were all within three seconds of each other, with Franich and Fitzgerald less than 10 seconds back after a 3:18.344 semi-final effort, which was a seven second improvement on their heat time.

McDowell had the unluckiest race of the day, drawing the fastest heat of the morning and finishing sixth to miss the semi-finals by one spot. His 3:40.005 time would've been comfortably enough to progress in four of the other six heats.

Tonight's racing sees the New Zealand women's K4 in action, with Jaimee Lovett, Caitlin Ryan, Aimee Fisher and Kayla Imrie pleased with how they're progressing following six weeks of intensive overseas training after leaving these shores.

'We've had some really good sessions and every time we've got on the water, it was getting better every day,” Lovett says.

'Even in the last week, we've managed to learn a bit more and go a little bit faster and all the fine-tuning is going really well. Everyone's feeling pretty positive and looking forward to racing.”