Canoe Sprint at the 2016 Summer Olympics

The canoe sprint competitions at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics were held at the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon, which also hosted the rowing events. All flatwater events were considered canoe sprint events. Following the relatively substantial changes to the 2012 program, the 2016 edition remained the same, and most of the spots in both disciplines, awarded to the NOCs rather than individual athletes, were based off the results of the 2015 World Championships. There were eight events for men and four for women. The men raced over 200 metres in K1, K2, and C1, with the women contesting a K1-200 metre sprint. The other events were all over 1,000 metres.

The lagoon was a source of concern prior to the Games, due to the presence of pollution, masses of dead fish, and drug-resistant bacteria, but there were no problems reported during the tournament itself. Due to concerns surrounding systematic doping, four Russians, all male Belarusian sprinters, and all Romanian sprinters were banned from Rio.

Germany and Hungary, traditionally the strongest nations in sprint canoeing, exchanged places from their ranking in London as Germany took four gold medals (all in men’s events) to Hungary’s three (all in women’s events). Germany also won silver twice behind the Hungarians, leaving them the clear winners of the sprints, as Hungary was otherwise shut out of the podium. The only other nation to earn two sprint titles was Spain, which won the K1-1,000 and the K2-200, thereby doubling its historic Olympic canoeing title count.

Isaquias Queiroz became the first Brazilian to win three medals in one edition of the Olympics by taking silver in the C1-1,000 and C2-1,000 and bronze in the C1-200 in front of a jubilant home crowd. He was outdone, however, by Danuta Kozák of Hungary, who won the K1-, K2-, and K4-500 events, thus becoming the first canoeist to win three Olympic titles in one edition. Germany had three competitors, Sebastian Brendel, Max Rendschmidt, and Marcus Groß win two gold medals, while Gabriella Szabó shared Kozák’s gold medals in the K2- and K4-500.