Canoe Doubles (C2), 1,000 metres, Men

The Men’s C-2 1000 was a difficult race to call, as there were several viable challengers for gold. Defending Olympic Champion Germany entered Jan Vandrey and Sebastian Brendel, the latter of whom had already defended his Olympic title in the C-1 1000 and thus gave his nation a fair shot at the top of the podium, despite Germany’s struggles in other tournaments (its only recent medals were bronze at the 2014 World and 2015 European Championships). Brazil’s Erlon Silva and Isaquias Queiroz were the reigning World and Pan-American Champions, with the latter having become the first Brazilian to win a canoeing medal by taking silver in the C-1 1000 and bronze in the C-1 200, and would certainly benefit from a home crowd. Russia had been successful at the Europeans, winning in 2013 and 2016 and coming in as runner-up in-between, and brought rookie Ilya Shtokalov to Rio to support the decorated Ilya Pervukhin, who had earned a bronze medal in the event at the 2012 Summer Olympics. This was a result of Pervukhin’s normal partner, Aleksey Korovashkov, being among the over 100 Russians banned from Rio due to doping concerns.

Germany won its preliminary heat, qualifying automatically for the final, while Russia finished third behind Brazil and Ukraine’s Dmytro Yanchuk and Taras Mishchuk, the 2015 European Champions. Ukraine advanced by winning its semifinal heat, while Russia was again third, this time in a semifinal won by Fernando Jorge and Serguey Torres of Cuba. In the final, Brazil led for most of the distance, fueled by the support of a home crowd, but was passed in the last stretch by the Germans, giving Brendel his second gold medal of the Games. Queiroz, meanwhile, became the first Brazilian to win three medals in a single edition of the Olympics. The Ukrainians came in third to round off the podium.