Kayak Doubles (K2), 1,000 metres, Men

Due to World War II, there had been no recent Canoe Sprint World Championships, which, at the time, was the best predictor of Olympic success in the sport. The Scandinavian nations, however, were considered as having the strongest crews in the sport, particularly Sweden, who sent Hans Berglund and Lennart Klingström to the 1948 Summer Olympics. Berglund had won a silver medal in the K-2 1000 at the 1938 World Championships.

The Olympic opening heats were won by Finland’s Ture Axelsson and Nils Björklöf, who had taken bronze in the K-2 10,000 the previous day, and Denmark’s Ejvind Hansen and Bernhard Jensen. The final came down to a sprint between Denmark and Sweden, which the latter won by only 0.2 seconds. Finland, meanwhile, had come in third, while the Hungarian duo of Kálmán Blahó and János Urányi, who had seemed well-positioned to take a medal, were disqualified for “hanging” in the wash of another kayak, which was forbidden by the International Canoe Federation. This incident was downplayed in the Official Report, which claimed “over a short distance under conditions which permit only a minimum space between craft, it is possible to give the appearance of ‘hanging’ when innocent of any such intent”.