Kayak Doubles, 500 metres, Men

Germany’s Ronald Rauhe and Tim Wieskötter, the 2000 Olympic bronze medalists, had won every edition of the European and World Championships since those Games and were the overwhelming favorites to take the title at the 2004 edition. They defeated their opponents with little difficulty in the opening and final rounds and won gold in Olympic record time. The race for the remaining podium spots came down to a three-way battle between Australia’s Clint Robinson and Nathan Baggaley, Belarus’ Roman Petrushenko and Vadim Makhnyov, the 2003 World runners-up, and Poland’s Marek Twardowski and Adam Wysocki, the 1999 World Champions and 2002 runners-up, as well as the 2001 European bronze medalists. These crews finished in that order within 0.128 seconds of each other. Baggaley thus added another Olympic silver medal to the one that he had won in the K-1 500 just over an hour before.