Canoe Sprint at the 2024 Summer Olympics

The programme for canoe sprint was similar to that at Tokyo 2020, as men and women had basically the same events, with five different events for each gender. Both raced singles and doubles in kayak and Canadian (canoe) boats, and raced a kayak four event. There were some slight differences in the race distances, as the women raced 200 metres and the men 1,000 metres in canoe singles, and, in kayak singles, the men raced 1,000 metres and the women 500 metres.

The events were contested at the National Olympic Nautical Stadium d’Île-de-France, in Vaires-sur-Marne, France. Each nation was limited to two boats per sprint event, with a maximum of six per gender in kayaking, and a maximum of three per gender in canoeing, and each nation could enter no more than 18 sprint canoeists.

There were 50 nations who competed in sprint canoeing at Paris 2024. Hungary won the most medals in the discipline, with seven, but they did not win any of the events. Fifteen nations won medals in sprint canoeing, with five nations dividing up the 10 gold medals.

New Zealand won three gold medals, led by the redoubtable Lisa Carrington, who won three gold medals herself, as she had at Tokyo 2020. Carrington won the kayak singles, as well as the kayak doubles with Alicia Hoskin, and led her New Zealand crew to the kayak four gold medal. This gave Carrington a total of nine Olympic medals in sprint canoeing, trailing only Germany’s Birgit Fischer-Schmidt, who won 12, although she and Fischer-Schmidt both have won eight gold medals.

Among the men, Germany won the kayak doubles and fours, led by Max Lemke and Jacob Schopf, who both left Paris with two gold medals. Lemke had also won a kayak four gold medal at Tokyo 2020, where Schopf had taken silver in kayak doubles with a different partner. China and Czechia also won two events in sprint canoeing at Paris 2024.