Dame Lisa Carrington bounced back to beat Aimee Fisher in the second of their three-race women's K1500 final at the national canoe sprint championships at Lake Karapiro on Sunday.
After being edged by 0.8s in the first race on Saturday, Dame Lisa scraped home by 0.11s to square the ledger against world champion Fisher.
The result sends the final to a decisive third race to determine who will represent New Zealand at the world championships later this year.
As per International Canoe Racing Federation rules, each country is allowed a maximum one entry per event for the event, which takes place at Novia Scotia, Canada in August.
Fisher won last year's world K1 500 title at Copenhagen, with Carrington bypassing the event, after her historic three gold-medal haul in the K1 500, K1 200 and the K2 500 at the Tokyo Olympics.
Fisher made herself unavailable for last year's Olympics, due to an ongoing disagreement with Canoe Racing NZ over athlete welfare.
The third and final race will take place on Thursday.
