Kayak Doubles, 500 metres, Women

The field for the women’s K-2 500 at the 2000 Summer Olympics was fairly open, as the results from the World Championships had been relatively inconsistent. Germany’s Birgit Fischer, a 1996 Olympic runner-up, probably helped make her nation the favorite, as she had five Olympic gold medals, including one from this event in 1988, and 28 World titles, including six from the K-2 500, the most recent of which was from 1997. In Sydney she was partnered with Katrin Wagner. Katrin Borchert and Anna Wood, who had once competed for Germany and the Netherlands respectively, but were now representing Australia, were the 1996 Olympic bronze medalists, as well as the 1997 World Champions and the 1998 runners-up. Poland’s Beata Sokołowska and Aneta Pastuszka, meanwhile, were the reigning European and World Champions.

The Germans defeated Sokołowska and Pastuszka in the opening round, although both advanced directly to the final, while the Australians were relegated to the semi-finals by Hungary’s Katalin Kovács and Szilvia Szabó, the 1999 World bronze medalists and European runners-up. The Germans won the final decisively, while Poland and Hungary battled to the line for silver, which the latter won by a margin of 0.204 seconds. Fisher and Wagner thus became double Olympic champions, as they had helped win the K-4 500 the previous day, while Kovács and Szabó added another silver medal to the one that they had won in that event.