Kiwi kayakers' love story ‘OUR OAR SOME OLYMPIC ROMANCE'

Anne and Carl have beaten the odds to take their relationship to Tokyo

- Steve Landells

Going for Gold 2021

It was in 1999 that Kiwi kayakers Anne Cairns and Carl Barnes first travelled overseas together for a junior world championship in Italy, becoming close friends along the way. But little did they know, 22 years later, they’d be a couple – and on a joint mission to bring home gold at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Born and raised in Palmerston North, Anne is due to compete in the canoe sprint events on August 2, with her boyfriend Carl by her side as team coach and manager. It’ll be a sweet moment for them both after two decades of struggle and sacrifice, with Anne making big compromises to achieve her paddling goals and Carl facing up to mental health challenges.

“We sometimes look at our situation now and think we could never have predicted us coming together like this,” Anne, 40, tells Woman’s Day. “But that’s life – so much is about timing, circumstance and opportunity, so we’re happy to just keep rolling with it.”

Recalling their trip to the Junior World Downriver Championships in Milan all those years ago, Anne says, “Our personalities gelled well and we became really good mates. We were both aged 18 and I was a bit of a fangirl because he won the World Junior title there.”

For his part, Carl remembers his “intense and focused” attitude contrasted to Anne’s more “easy-going nature”, but any thoughts of a romance were quickly quashed in the mind of the Taranaki dairy farmer.

“I thought Anne was out of my league,” he confesses, making Anne laugh.

She insists, “I always thought of myself as pretty aloof and would never have thought someone like Carl would even be interested.”