Kayak Doubles, 1,000 metres, Men

The German duo of Max Rendschmidt and Marcus Groß were undefeated in the European Championships since the 2012 Summer Olympics and had missed only the 2014 edition of the World Championships, which were won by veteran Slovenians Erik Vlček and Juraj Tarr. The World runners-up for the past two years had been Australians Lachlan Tame and Ken Wallace, the latter of whom was the 2008 Olympic Champion in the K-1 500. Serbians Marko Tomićević and Milenko Zorić, meanwhile, had taken bronze at the last two Worlds, as well as the most recent Europeans.

Germany and Serbia qualified directly for the final in the preliminaries, with Slovakia and Australia respectively behind them. Tame and Wallace won their semifinal with ease, while Slovakia finished third in a heat won by Portugal’s João Ribeiro and Emanuel Silva, the latter of whom was a runner-up in the event in London. The final evolved into a contest between Serbia and Germany for gold, which the latter won by a margin of 0.188 seconds. Near the end of the race, it looked as if the Portuguese would take the bronze medal, but a determined drive by the Australians allowed them to steal the final podium spot by 0.296 seconds. Rendschmidt and Groß would go on to win a second gold medal in the K-4 1000 two days later.