Kayak Fours (K4), 500 metres, Men

The men’s kayak four 500 metre event had been held at the Olympics only in 2020. It replaced the K2-1,000, which was held from 1964 to 2016.

The K4 event was expected to be a battle between Germany and Hungary. A German four was the defending gold medalist, had won the 2023 World Championships, and was the silver medalist at the 2022 Worlds. Hungary had been runner-up at the 2023 Worlds but came into Paris world ranked #1. Spain was also considered a challenger, ranking second in the world before the Olympics.

Serbia opened the event with an Olympic best time of 1:20.99 in winning heat one, only to see that bettered by the German four in heat two, who posted 1:20.51. The unheralded Australian crew failed to qualify for the semi-finals in round one, and went to the quarter-finals, where they won the race in 1:19.39. In heat one of the semis, Australia again posted the fastest time, winning in 1:19.22.

The battle for the gold medal in the final came down to the favored Germans against the upstart Australians, with Germany posting a narrow win by 0.04 seconds. Behind them, Spain took the bronze medal. Although hardly considered a power in flatwater canoeing, this marked the 12th consecutive Olympics at which the Australian men had won a medal, a streak going back to 1980.

The German gold medalist had three paddlers who had been on the gold medal winning boat in 2020 – Max Rendschmidt, Max Lemke, and Tom Liebscher-Lucz. The fourth paddler was Jacob Schopf, who replaced Ronny Rauhe.