Kayak Doubles, 1,000 metres, Men

Of all of podium finishers in the K-2 1000 from the 1952 Summer Olympics, only Max Raub and Herbert Wiedermann of Austria, the bronze medalists, travelled to the 1956 edition to compete again. Similarly, the only recent World medalists were Germany’s Meinrad Miltenberger and Michel Scheuer, the 1950 runners-up, the latter of whom had taken bronze in the K-1 10000 the previous day. Finland, the defending Olympic champion, was represented by Pentti Raaskoski and Juhani Helenius, while Hungary, the reigning World Champion, sent Imre Vágyóczky and Zoltán Szigeti.

In the first opening heat, the Soviet duo of Mihhail Kaaleste and Anatoly Demitkov secured a victory over the Austrians and helped eliminate the Hungarians, while the Germans won the second, easier heat. In the final heat, Raaskoski and Helenius were disqualified after running into Belgians Rik Verbrugghe and Germain Van De Moere, while Australians Walter Brown and Dennis Green, who had won bronze in the K-2 10000 the day before, emerged victorious. In the medal round, Miltenberger and Scheuer captured the gold medal in Olympic record time, while Kaaleste and Demitkov came in shortly after for silver. The rest of the field was fairly far back, and it was Miltenberger and Scheuer who nabbed the bronze, stealing it from the Romanian duo of Mircea Anastasescu and Stavru Teodorov by only 0.3 seconds.