The men's C-1 500 metres event was an open-style, individual canoeing event conducted as part of the Canoeing at the 2000 Summer Olympics program.
Medallists Gold Silver Bronze
Results
Heats 18 competitors were entered on 27 September. The top three finishers in both heats moved on to the final. Fourth through seventh-place finishers and the fastest eighth-place finisher advanced to the semifinal.
Heat 1 Rank Canoer Country Time Notes 1 Maxim Opalev 1:51.048 QF 2 György Kolonics 1:51.492 QF 3 Slavomír Kňazovický 1:52.146 QF 4 Florin Huidu 1:53.076 QS 5 José Manuel Crespo 1:53.862 QS 6 Christian Frederiksen 1:54.366 QS 7 Aleksandr Maseykov 1:54.468 SQ 8 Kaysar Nurmaganbetov 1:55.422 SQ 9 Jordan Malloch 1:58.938
Heat 2 Rank Canoer Country Time Notes 1 Andreas Dittmer 1:50.340 QF 2 Martin Doktor 1:51.174 QF 3 Ledis Balceiro 1:51.918 QF 4 Nikolay Bukhalov 1:51.996 QS 5 Maxime Boilard 1:52.764 QS 6 Michał Śliwiński 1:53.682 QS 7 Éric le Leuch 1:53.934 SQ 8 Andreas Kilingaridis 1:57.858 9 Michał Gajownik 2:04.704
Semifinal A semifinal was held on 29 September with the top three finishers advancing to the final. Rank Canoer Country Time Notes 1 Maxime Boilard 1:52.071 QF 2 Nikolay Bukhalov 1:52.371 QF 3 Michał Śliwiński 1:52.461 QF 4 Florin Huidu 1:53.277 5 Christian Frederiksen 1:53.661 6 Kaysar Nurmaganbetov 1:54.465 7 José Manuel Crespo 1:54.765 8 Aleksandr Maseykov 1:55.035 9 Éric le Leuch 1:56.907
Final The final took place on 1 October. Rank Canoer Country Time Notes György Kolonics 2:24.813 Maxim Opalev 2:25.809 Andreas Dittmer 2:27.591 4 Maxime Boilard 2:29.259 5 Slavomír Kňazovický 2:29.613 6 Ledis Balceiro 2:32.229 7 Michał Śliwiński 2:33.129 8 Martin Doktor 2:37.467 9 Nikolay Bukhalov 2:44.829
Kolonics, initially a C-2 canoer, moved to C-1 500 m when he and his partner Csaba Horváth failed to qualify in the Hungarian Olympic trials. His prior success in this event was a silver at the 1993 world championships, but he was able to upset then two-time defending event world champion Opalev (The Russian has won this event world championship five times as of 2008.) in the final. Before his 2008 death, Kolonics would win two more world championship silvers in the event, earning them in 2001 and 2002.
References 2000 Summer Olympics Canoe sprint results. Sports-reference.com 2000 C-1 500 m results. Wallechinsky, David and Jaime Loucky (2008). "Canoeing: Men's Canadian Singles 500 Meters". In The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition. London: Aurum Press Limited. p. 479.