Select your preferred store for a more customised experience.
What a Sport - Lisa Carrington
One of Toyota’s newest ambassadors, Lisa Carrington is more famously recognised as one of our greatest New Zealand Olympians… with more still to come.
She represented New Zealand at the London 2012 Olympic Games, winning gold, and at Rio de Janeiro 2016, where she won gold and bronze and in doing so became the first New Zealand woman to win multiple medals at the same Olympic Games.
She is currently preparing for the Tokyo Olympics and remains firmly on track to become the first New Zealander to win three consecutive Olympic
gold medals.
Lisa is also completing a degree in psychology and has a passion for healthy living, sustainability and inspiring youth to be active. As part of her ambassador role with Toyota, Lisa will be advocating our Toyota Kiwi Guardians partnership with the Department of Conservation.
We’ve taken some time to tell you a bit about Lisa.
What are you really passionate about?
I am passionate about people and the environment that we share with everyone and everything. How people interact with each other and the environment is a real passion of mine.
Why is the environment so important to you?
It is important to me for lots of reasons. We share the planet with millions of other species, and all play an integral role in maintaining the balance of nature. The environment also offers an amazing opportunity for people to connect with nature. We can all access our oceans, rivers, lakes, parks and mountains whenever we wish. It is so important that we respect and protect this.
What attracted you to be a Toyota ambassador?
Toyota is an organisation that thinks beyond the here and now. It has a deep care for people and for the environments that people live in. To be able to be part of its initiatives with both the Olympic Games and wider causes is a fantastic opportunity.
Tell us why you were so keen to be involved in the Toyota Kiwi Guardians programme?
Toyota Kiwi Guardians encapsulates so many amazing elements. To be able to raise awareness of, and create positive behaviours amongst young New Zealanders towards the environment is something that is so important to me.
Thinking about ‘start your impossible’ and given 2020 has thrown many curve balls for our elite sports people, what have you been doing in the past few months?
We are lucky to have an amazing coaching staff and group of athletes with our sport. The focus from everyone has been on controlling what we can control and not getting swept away with what we can’t. We have all been working really hard with our preparation for next year and trying to improve a little bit each day, week and month.
What advice would you give to anyone thinking about goal setting? How have you coped with the postponement of the Olympics?
It’s great to have something meaningful to work towards – no matter what it is. It might be a charity project, study, a career or a sport. It can be a bit of a cliché, but the real rewards come from the daily effort. That’s where you can learn and grow the most. It’s no different with the Olympics.
What motivates you? And how do you deal with the pressure to perform?
With the culture we have in our sport at the moment, we are all driven to keep improving every day. That’s what motivates all of us. We are all focused
on improving ourselves, the person next to us and the group as a whole. We set our own pressure and expectations, so that kind of takes care of itself. We try (as much as we can) to stay away from letting other people’s expectations influence what we do and how we are going. We are focused on setting our standards as much as we can.
ABOUT TOYOTA KIWI GUARDIANS
There are plenty of reasons to get into the great outdoors, but with so many digital toys available, kids are spending more time inside.
Toyota New Zealand and the Department of Conservation are working together to get kids into nature. We want them to explore their natural surroundings, earn rewards and take action in their communities towards creating a better environment.
Toyota Kiwi Guardians is an activity programme for kids to learn about nature and earn cool rewards through activities and adventures such as:
- Following adventure maps and exploring the many Kiwi Guardians sites throughout New Zealand
- Taking actions intheir backyards
- Attending special events
- Earning Kiwi Guardian medals
Find out more: www.kiwiguardians.co.nz