Oldřich Lomecký and Bohuslav Karlík were the most recent World bronze medalists in the C-2 10000, but were also representing the World Champion nation of Czechoslovakia at the 1952 Summer Olympics, who had won the event in 1950 with Jan Brzák-Felix and Bohumil Kudrna, competitors in the C-2 1000 in Helsinki. Karlík and Brzák-Felix had also been the 1938 World Champions in the C-2 10000 and runners-up in the C-2 1000. France’s Armand Loreau and Georges Dransart were the reigning World runners-up in both disciplines, but they took part in the C-2 1000 and left this event to Georges Turlier and Jean Laudet. It was the Canadian pair of Ken Lane and Don Hawgood, however, who led the race for most of the course, being passed only at the end by Turlier and Laudet, who captured the gold medal. The Canadians thus settled for silver while the German duo, Egon Drews and Wilfried Soltau, took bronze. The Germans would win another bronze medal the next day in the C-2 1000.