A 40-year domination of women’s kayak four Canoe Sprint at the Olympics came to an end in dramatic style in Paris on Thursday when New Zealand crashed through for its first-ever gold in the event.

In doing so, New Zealand ended a run of nine Olympic Games where crews from either Germany or Hungary have won gold.

You have to go back to 1984, the first time women’s K4 was held at the Olympics, when Romania finished on top of the podium.

It also marked the sixth gold medal for 35-year-old Lisa Carrington, bringing her level with Hungarian legend Danuta Kozak and just two behind German legend Birgit Fischer-Schmidt.

Carrington has won golds at four consecutive Games, and still has two more races in Paris this week.

But Thursday was all about the quartet of Carrington, Alicia Hoskin, Olivia Brett and Tara Vaughan.

None of the members of the New Zealand crew were even born when someone other than Germany or Hungary won the Olympic gold. Carrington was aware of the history.

“It’s pretty cool,” she said.

“What’s amazing is they were still on the podium, and for me to see how excited they were to get their medals, I thought wow. It’s just cool to be part of a group women like that.”

Carrington and Hoskin, who will paddle for women's kayak double 500m gold on Friday, are all that remain from the quartet that finished fourth in Tokyo.

New Zealand went into those Games as solid medal prospects, but finished fourth.  

“I guess there has been a few results from the past that have really fuelled my inspiration for working together as a team. I just didn’t want to come fourth again,” Hoskin said.

“I knew that three years ago I needed to put in the work, I needed to grow as a person and as an athlete, and I needed to help build the team, help trust the team. The relationships within the team is how we paddle our K4.”

As usual New Zealand went out hard from the start. But the young German crew went with them, and hit the lead with less than half the race to go. Carrington, sitting at the front of the boat, knew they were no longer in the gold medal position.

“I could sense that,” she said.

“Coming into the last couple of hundred metres, it was like, you just have to keep putting in the work, keep sticking to how we technically know how to paddle, and squeezing out as much as we can.

“We just stayed in our own boat, we just stuck to what our plan was, it’s all part of the strategy. It’s hard when you’re really excited, there’s that much going on, you can really stray from what’s the most important thing, and that’s the strategy. All four of us have got to be on the same page.”

History will show New Zealand took the gold by just 0.42 of a second, with the defending Olympic champions Hungary a further 0.31 seconds back in third.