Canadian Doubles, 1,000 metres, Men

Germany’s Christian Gille and Tomasz Wylenzek were the defending Olympic champions in the C-2 1000 and had been fairly successful on the international scene since, winning the 2005 and 2007 European and World Championships and being runners-up at the 2006 Europeans. Hungary’s György Kozmann and György Kolonics, the 2004 Olympic bronze medalists, had been the 2006 World Champions, the 2005 and 2007 European runners-up, and the 2005 World bronze medalists, but Kolonics died of heart failure shortly prior to the 2008 Summer Olympics and was replaced by Tamás Kiss. Belarusian brothers Andrey and Aleksandr Bogdanovich, meanwhile, were the 2008 European champions and the 2006 and 2007 bronze medalists.

The Germans and the Belarusians won their opening heats and advanced directly to the final, while the Hungarians were fourth in the German heat and were relegated to the semi-finals. Here they were defeated by Poland’s Wojciech Tyszyński and Paweł Baraszkiewicz, the 2007 World and 2008 European bronze medalists. The final was a tight race between the Germans and the Belarusians, both of whom were almost four seconds ahead of the rest of the pack as they crossed the finish line, with the Bogdanovich brothers capturing gold by a margin of only 0.223 seconds. Hungary, meanwhile, was engaged in a three-way battle for bronze with the Romania and Chinese teams, which it won by a mere 0.084 seconds. Gille and Wylenzek would go on to earn bronze in the C-2 500 the following day.