Carrington, who successfully defended her K1 200 metres title at last year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, powered through to the final of the 500m event in a time of 1min 50.001sec.

The 27-year-old, who earned bronze over 500m at Rio 2016, won the first semi-final in front of Hungary's Ninetta Vad, while Australia's Alyce Burnett was third at the International Canoe Federation (ICF) sanctioned event.

Carrington then progressed to the semi-final of the women's K2 500m along with team-mate up Caitlin Ryan.

The duo from New Zealand breezed to a commanding win in their heat, clocking a time of 1:42.348 to finish over a second in front of German Olympic silver medallists Franziska Weber and Tina Dietze.

Tomorrow's men’s K1 1,000m final is shaping up to be a repeat of the race at the 2016 Olympics, with Spain's Marcus Walz, the gold medallist at last year's Games, among the field.

Walz will be looking to clinch further success over his rivals when he takes to the water for the final, where he will take on the likes of Olympic silver medallist Josef Dostál of the Czech Republic, Portugal’s Ferdinand Pimenta, Denmark’s Rene Poulsen and Slovakia’s Peter Gelle.

Dostál, who could only manage second place in his semi-final as he crossed the line behind Germany's Tom Liebscher, who won in 3:29.651, is hoping for better conditions in the final.

"I don’t like the water here, because for me it is very tough," he said.

"And the back wind, for a guy like me with this weight, it is very hard to compete.

"But luckily I made it to the final, and we will see tomorrow. 

"I am sometimes very bad in semi-finals, but then I can show up in finals."

Walz also endured a tough semi-final and squeezed through as the third-fastest finisher.

Poulsen took victory in 3:26.522, with Pimenta ousting Walz for second place.

Elsewhere on day one in Szeged, Dmytro Ianchuk and Taras Mishchuk of the Ukraine, bronze medallists in Rio, crashed out of the men's C2 1,000m event.

The Ukrainian pair languished down in fourth place in their semi-final.

Olympic champions Sebastian Brendel and Jan Vandrey of Germany safely qualified and will get the chance to add another gold medal to their collection as they claimed victory in their race in a time of 3:30.000.