Canadian Doubles, 1,000 metres, Men

Michał Śliwiński had competed under four banners internationally, the Soviet Union, Ukraine, Poland, and the 1992 Olympic “Unified Team”, and had won numerous medals with many partners across several disciplines. Most relevant to the C-2 1000 event at the 2004 Summer Olympics were his 2004 European and 2001 and 2002 World Championship titles and, partnered with Łukasz Woszczyński, he was a favorite at the Games. Romania’s Florin Popescu also had a strong background, which included the 2000 Olympic, 2001 and 2002 European, and 2003 World titles and, teamed with Silviu Simioncencu, was another strong favorite. Despite having won all of the recent international titles, however, neither of these men would leave Athens with a new canoeing medal.

Romania and Poland were drawn together in the first opening heat, which the former won, although both advanced directly to the final. The other heat, meanwhile, was taken by Germany’s Christian Gille and Tomasz Wylenzek, who had never reached the podium in this event at a major international tournament. They would go on, however, to win the gold medal in the final by a margin of over a second. The Russian duo of Aleksandr Kostoglod and Aleksandr Kovalyov, runners-up at the most recent European and World Championships, took silver, and would later add to their collection by earning bronze in the C-2 500 the following day. The Russians had staved off a challenge from Hungarians György Kozmann and György Kolonics, the most recent World bronze medalists, by 0.116 seconds and left them with bronze.