The Otago paddler made her Olympic debut on Tuesday night as one half of a New Zealand K2 500m crew with Aimee Fisher.
The pair finished fourth in their heat at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in 1min 46.52sec.
Later, they were fifth in their quarterfinal in 1min 44.45sec, and missed out on the semifinals.
Just over three minutes of action might not seem like much but for Matehaere, who worked exceptionally hard to earn her debut Olympic selection well ahead of schedule, it was both a dream come true and a chance to learn a lot about herself.
"Obviously, results-wise, I would have loved to make the semi and make the A final, but I’m just going to learn as much as I can from this experience," she said.
The 23-year-old paddler, whose father Brent, the Otago Nuggets coach, leads the support crew in Paris, said there were no significant nerves before making her Olympic debut.
"To be honest, I actually was a lot calmer than I anticipated, but that’s probably due to a lot of mental work that I’ve been doing over the last four months.
"To be able to be calm and grounded and clear-headed in the moment was really important and I managed to execute that today, so yeah, I’m really happy with how that work paid off."
Matehaere’s status as a valued member of the New Zealand kayak sprint team was highlighted by her classy team-mate.
The former Otago Girls’ High School pupil could be proud of her efforts, Fisher said.
"I would have loved to have had some more races with Lucy. We did put a lot of work into this and I’m really proud of how we went.
"I guess now I switch into K1 more, and I will need Lucy just as much in that event as I do now. She is my rock on race day. She stands with me and she covers me, and we march on."
Fisher said she and Matehaere could not have done much more in their K2 quarterfinal.
"We had a pretty big goal coming into this thing to lay it all out there and try to make the A final.
"We did everything we could and today it wasn’t enough to progress to the next round. We were up against some absolute world-class crews and what more can you do?
"I’m super proud of what we were able to display out there."
Fisher will challenge another team-mate, the great Lisa Carrington, in the K1 500m.
Carrington said pacing herself would be the key to adding to her Olympic career haul of five gold medals.
The country’s most decorated Olympian began her latest campaign by spearheading the K4 and K2 boats to comfortable heat wins with the young K4 crew advancing directly to the final.
She told Sky Sport the paddlers would not be getting carried away.
"This is day one of five. The nerves coming in today were pretty high so we’re definitely not going to diminish how important this is," Carrington said.
"Really stoked that we’ve managed to do the job so far. We still have four more days."
Last night, Fisher distanced her opposition to win the first heat of the K1 500m heats in 1min 49.16sec while Carrington cruised to victory in the second heat in 1min 48.51sec.
