Canadian Doubles, 500 metres, Men

Unlike the 1980 American-led boycott, which had had a limited impact on the canoeing events, the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics severely depleted the field in the sport. This was noticeable in the men’s C-2 500, as nations that had won two of the last edition’s medals and six of the last nine World Championship medals were absent. The favorites were the 1981 and 1983 World Champions Matija Ljubek and Mirko Nišović of Yugoslavia and they made short work of the competition in Los Angeles, winning their opening heat by a margin of almost a second and the final by just over two. The Romanian duo of Toma Simionov and Ivan Patzaichin, who had numerous Olympic and World Champion medals between them, took silver, but the tables would be turned the following day when Ljubek and Nišović were runners-up to the Romanians in the C-2 1000. The battle for bronze was much more exciting, with France’s Didier Hoyer and Éric Renaud going neck and neck with Spain’s Enrique Míguez and Narciso Suárez across the finish line, with the latter capturing bronze by the slimmest margin possible: 0.01 seconds. Again, however, the situation would be more or less reversed in the C-2 1000, when France earned bronze and Spain was sixth.