Canoeing at the 2000 Summer Olympics – Men's C-1 500 metres

The men's C-1 500 metres event was an open-style, individual canoeing event conducted as part of the Canoeing at the 2000 Summer Olympics program.

Medallists

Gold Gold Silver Silver Bronze Bronze
 György Kolonics (HUN)  Maxim Opalev (RUS)  Andreas Dittmer (GER)

Results

Heats

18 competitors were entered on 27 September. The top three finishers in both heats moved on to the final. Fourth through seventh-place finishers and the fastest eighth-place finisher advanced to the semifinal.

Heat 1

Rank Canoer Country Time Notes
1 Maxim Opalev  Russia 1:51.048 QF
2 György Kolonics  Hungary 1:51.492 QF
3 Slavomír Kňazovický  Slovakia 1:52.146 QF
4 Florin Huidu  Romania 1:53.076 QS
5 José Manuel Crespo  Spain 1:53.862 QS
6 Christian Frederiksen  Norway 1:54.366 QS
7 Aleksandr Maseykov  Belarus 1:54.468 SQ
8 Kaysar Nurmaganbetov  Kazakhstan 1:55.422 SQ
9 Jordan Malloch  United States 1:58.938

Heat 2

Rank Canoer Country Time Notes
1 Andreas Dittmer  Germany 1:50.340 QF
2 Martin Doktor  Czech Republic 1:51.174 QF
3 Ledis Balceiro  Cuba 1:51.918 QF
4 Nikolay Bukhalov  Bulgaria 1:51.996 QS
5 Maxime Boilard  Canada 1:52.764 QS
6 Michał Śliwiński  Ukraine 1:53.682 QS
7 Éric le Leuch  France 1:53.934 SQ
8 Andreas Kilingaridis  Greece 1:57.858
9 Michał Gajownik  Poland 2:04.704

Semifinal

A semifinal was held on 29 September with the top three finishers advancing to the final.

Rank Canoer Country Time Notes
1 Maxime Boilard  Canada 1:52.071 QF
2 Nikolay Bukhalov  Bulgaria 1:52.371 QF
3 Michał Śliwiński  Ukraine 1:52.461 QF
4 Florin Huidu  Romania 1:53.277
5 Christian Frederiksen  Norway 1:53.661
6 Kaysar Nurmaganbetov  Kazakhstan 1:54.465
7 José Manuel Crespo  Spain 1:54.765
8 Aleksandr Maseykov  Belarus 1:55.035
9 Éric le Leuch  France 1:56.907

Final

The final took place on 1 October.

Rank Canoer Country Time Notes
1st place, gold medalist(s) György Kolonics  Hungary 2:24.813
2nd place, silver medalist(s) Maxim Opalev  Russia 2:25.809
3rd place, bronze medalist(s) Andreas Dittmer  Germany 2:27.591
4 Maxime Boilard  Canada 2:29.259
5 Slavomír Kňazovický  Slovakia 2:29.613
6 Ledis Balceiro  Cuba 2:32.229
7 Michał Śliwiński  Ukraine 2:33.129
8 Martin Doktor  Czech Republic 2:37.467
9 Nikolay Bukhalov  Bulgaria 2:44.829

Kolonics, initially a C-2 canoer, moved to C-1 500 m when he and his partner Csaba Horváth failed to qualify in the Hungarian Olympic trials. His prior success in this event was a silver at the 1993 world championships, but he was able to upset then two-time defending event world champion Opalev (The Russian has won this event world championship five times as of 2008.) in the final. Before his 2008 death, Kolonics would win two more world championship silvers in the event, earning them in 2001 and 2002.

References