With Switzerland and the United States dropping out, the coxless pairs event was contested by only three nations: France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Nevertheless, the organizers decided to hold preliminaries, in which the French pair of Maurice Monney-Bouton and Georges Piot defeated the British duo of Gordon Killick and Thomas Southgate, while Teun Beijnen and Willy Rösingh of the Netherlands essentially had a walkover. In the repêchage, of course, there was no one to challenge Killick and Southgate, so they advanced to the final, but dropped out prior to the start due to injury. This left France and the Netherlands to compete in the only meaningful race of the event, and the Dutch pair took an early lead in the first 1,000 metres. After their slow start, the French duo fought valiantly to catch up, but were never able to take the lead, settling for a silver medal. As the Britons had neither won a race nor participated in the final, there was no bronze medal awarded.