Natalya Sergeyeva, 45, is looking to represent Kazakhstan at a third Olympic Games after competing at Athens 2004 and London 2012 ©Getty Images

Kazakhstan secured a hat-trick of Tokyo 2020 quotas on the opening day of the Asian canoe sprint Olympic qualifiers in Pattaya in Thailand.

The flatwater quotas came in the men’s C2 1,000-metre, the women’s C2 500m and the women’s K1 500m.

Kazakhstan also came within a second of picking up a fourth quota, edged out in the men’s K2 1,000m by China.

The nation’s success follows a solid performance at last weekend’s canoe slalom qualifiers in Pattaya where it picked up two Olympic quotas.

Brothers Timofey and Sergey Yemelyanov held on by a fingernail to win the C2 1,000m race with Japan’s Kaiki Oshiro and Takanori Tome finishing runners-up.

The winner’s time was 3min 37.608secs, with Japan posting 3:37.780.

Uzbekistan’s Vladlen Denisov and Gerasim Kochnev finished third.

Natalya Sergeyeva secured the women’s K1 500m Olympic quota for Kazakhstan.

The 45-year-old made her Olympic debut at Athens 2004 before representing her country again at London 2012.

She posted a winning time of 1:53.711, with Singapore’s Jiexian Stephenie Chen second in 1:54.649 and Japan’s Hideka Tatara third in 1:54.896.

Brothers Sergey and Timofey Yemelyanov secured one of three golds for Kazakhstan at the Asian canoe sprint Olympic qualifiers ©Getty Images
Brothers Sergey and Timofey Yemelyanov secured one of three golds for Kazakhstan at the Asian canoe sprint Olympic qualifiers ©Getty Images

The third Olympic quota for Kazakhstan came in the women’s C2 500m - one of the new events set to feature at Tokyo 2020.

Svetlana Ussova and Margarita Torlopova finished in 1:59.250 ahead of Indonesia’s Riska Andriyani and Nurmeni Nurmeni who clocked 2:00.300.

Third place went to Iran’s Parisa Mohammadzadeh Nargesi and Atena Raouf Balgouri.

The final quota of the day went to China after Congkan Wang and Tingkai Bu won the men’s K2 1,000m in 3:11.344.

Ilya Golendov and Andrey Yerguchyov agonisingly missed out capping a perfect day for Kazakhstan as they finished second in 3:11.562.

Chinese Taipei’s Yong-Bo Lin and Yung-Chieh Lin were third in 3:15.612.

Five more Olympic quotas are set to be on offer tomorrow with men’s and women’s K1 200m, women’s C1 200m, and men’s K1 and C1 1,000m competitions.

Tomorrow is also set to be the first day of the Canoe Slalom European Championships in Italy which is serving as another continental qualifier for Tokyo 2020.

Around 200 athletes from 27 European countries are poised to compete in the event, scheduled to run until Sunday (May 9).

One Olympic place is left in each of the events while athletes will be keen to push their case for Tokyo 2020 selection in their respective national teams.