Lizzie Broughton can enjoy a well-earned break after breezing into her A final at the Canoe Sprint World Championships.

The Richmond athlete registered a solid, second-place finish in her K1 1000m heat, in a time of 3m56.45s, to book her spot in Saturday’s showpiece.

Broughton is traditionally a specialist over marathon distances and somewhat surprised the field in the shorter event last year by picking up silver, before later adding gold in the K1 5km.

The 31-year-old admits the competition is fierce in Szeged, but knows she’s made the perfect start to proceedings as she hunts for more medal glory.

And with the 5km event coming into play at the weekend, Broughton insists avoiding an extra race could prove pivotal to the strength of her challenge.

“I wanted to get straight through to the final and avoid the semi, so it’s job done,” she said. “I was just really pleased to finally get out on the water.

“I haven’t done a lot of races over the 1000m distance this year, so I was looking forward to getting going and it’s gone really well.

“But I felt pretty good coming into the competition – getting into the final was the aim and now I’ll just see where I end up.

“There are going to be nine very fast people in the final, so it really could be anyone’s race.

“I’m not going to do anything special in preparation – I’ll have a little paddle on Friday – but other than that I’ll just try to ensure I don’t get too tired or stay in the sun too long.

“The workload between the two events is fine and I’ll actually be doing a lot less here in Hungary than I would do in training.

“It’s just important I continue to focus on the next race and don’t look too far ahead.”

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