Kayak Singles, 500 metres, Women

Italy’s Josefa Idem entered the 2004 Summer Olympics, her sixth, as the defending Olympic champion and the 2001 World Champion in the women’s K-1 500, but most of the other recent major international titles in the event had gone to Katalin Kovács of Hungary. Kovács, however, did not take part in this event in Athens and left the task of representing her nation to Natasa Janics, the 2004 European champion. Canada’s Caroline Brunet, runner-up at the last two Olympics and World Championships, was also a contender. Bruent defeated Idem in the opening heats and advanced directly to the final, as did Janics and Slovakia’s Marcela Erbanová, the other heat winners. Idem won the first semi-final heat, while Germany’s Katrin Wagner, the 2001 European bronze medalist, took the other. Janics dominated the medal round, winning gold almost two seconds ahead of Idem. The Italian, who earned silver, came in slightly less than a second ahead of Brunet, while everyone else was over two seconds behind Idem. Janics, meanwhile, would become a double Olympic champion just over an hour later, when she and Kovács won the K-2 500.