# Canoeing at the 2012 Summer Olympics

Canoeing at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London were contested in two main disciplines: canoe slalom, from 29 July to 2 August, and canoe sprint, from 6 to 11 August. The slalom competition was held at the Lee Valley White Water Centre and the sprint events were staged at Eton College Rowing Centre, at Dorney Lake, known as Eton Dorney.
Around 330 athletes took part in 16 events. The men's 500m sprints were replaced by a 200m race; in addition, the men's C-2 500m was replaced by a women's K-1 200m sprint. This was confirmed at an International Canoe Federation board meeting at Windsor, Berkshire, on 5 December 2009. For the first time, women competed in two individual events in sprint canoeing. Because of the changes, the finals were spread over a three-day period instead of the traditional two days which had been in effect since the 1976 Games. The most successful nation in the slalom was France, with two gold medals in the four events, followed by Great Britain with one gold and one silver. In the sprint, Hungary was the most successful with three gold, two silver and one bronze medal, while Germany topped the medal table overall, with three gold, two silver and three bronze medals.

## Qualification

A new qualification system was created for both slalom and sprint canoeing at the 2012 Games. The quotas were set for each event by the International Canoe Federation in July 2010.

## Competition schedule

| H | Heats | ½ | Semifinals | F | Final |
Slalom :
| Event↓/Date → | Sun 29 | Mon 30 | Tue 31 | Tue 31 | Wed 1 | Wed 1 | Thu 2 | Thu 2 |
| Men's C-1 | H | | ½ | F | | | | |
| Men's C-2 | | H | | | | | ½ | F |
| Men's K-1 | H | | | | ½ | F | | |
| Women's K-1 | | H | | | | | ½ | F |
Sprint :
| Event↓/Date → | Mon 6 | Mon 6 | Tue 7 | Tue 7 | Wed 8 | Thu 9 | Fri 10 | Fri 10 | Sat 11 |
| Men's C-1 200 m | | | | | | | H | ½ | F |
| Men's C-1 1000 m | H | ½ | | | F | | | | |
| Men's C-2 1000 m | | | H | ½ | | F | | | |
| Men's K-1 200 m | | | | | | | H | ½ | F |
| Men's K-1 1000 m | H | ½ | | | F | | | | |
| Men's K-2 200 m | | | | | | | H | ½ | F |
| Men's K-2 1000 m | H | ½ | | | F | | | | |
| Men's K-4 1000 m | | | H | ½ | | F | | | |
| Women's K-1 200 m | | | | | | | H | ½ | F |
| Women's K-1 500 m | | | H | ½ | | F | | | |
| Women's K-2 500 m | | | H | ½ | | F | | | |
| Women's K-4 500 m | H | ½ | | | F | | | | |

## Medal summary
### By event
#### Slalom

| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| Men's C-1 details | Tony Estanguet France | Sideris Tasiadis Germany | Michal Martikán Slovakia |
| Men's C-2 details | Timothy Baillie Etienne Stott Great Britain | David Florence Richard Hounslow Great Britain | Pavol Hochschorner Peter Hochschorner Slovakia |
| Men's K-1 details | Daniele Molmenti Italy | Vavřinec Hradilek Czech Republic | Hannes Aigner Germany |
| Women's K-1 details | Émilie Fer France | Jessica Fox Australia | Maialen Chourraut Spain |

#### Sprint

Men
| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| C-1 200 m details | Yuriy Cheban Ukraine | Ivan Shtyl Russia | Alfonso Benavides Spain |
| C-1 1000 m details | Sebastian Brendel Germany | David Cal Spain | Mark Oldershaw Canada |
| C-2 1000 m details | Peter Kretschmer and Kurt Kuschela (GER) | Aliaksandr Bahdanovich and Andrei Bahdanovich (BLR) | Alexey Korovashkov and Ilya Pervukhin (RUS) |
| K-1 200 m details | Ed McKeever Great Britain | Saúl Craviotto Spain | Mark de Jonge Canada |
| K-1 1000 m details | Eirik Verås Larsen Norway | Adam van Koeverden Canada | Max Hoff Germany |
| K-2 200 m details | Alexander Dyachenko and Yury Postrigay (RUS) | Raman Piatrushenka and Vadzim Makhneu (BLR) | Liam Heath and Jon Schofield (GBR) |
| K-2 1000 m details | Rudolf Dombi and Roland Kökény (HUN) | Fernando Pimenta and Emanuel Silva (POR) | Andreas Ihle and Martin Hollstein (GER) |
| K-4 1000 m details | Australia (AUS) Tate Smith Dave Smith Murray Stewart Jacob Clear | Hungary (HUN) Zoltán Kammerer Dávid Tóth Tamás Kulifai Dániel Pauman | Czech Republic (CZE) Daniel Havel Lukáš Trefil Josef Dostál Jan Štěrba |

##### Women

| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| K-1 200 m details | Lisa Carrington New Zealand | Inna Osypenko Ukraine | Nataša Dušev-Janić Hungary |
| K-1 500 m details | Danuta Kozák Hungary | Inna Osypenko Ukraine | Bridgitte Hartley South Africa |
| K-2 500 m details | Franziska Weber and Tina Dietze (GER) | Katalin Kovács and Natasa Dusev-Janics (HUN) | Beata Mikołajczyk and Karolina Naja (POL) |
| K-4 500 m details | Hungary (HUN) Gabriella Szabó Danuta Kozák Katalin Kovács Krisztina Fazekas Zur | Germany (GER) Carolin Leonhardt Franziska Weber Katrin Wagner-Augustin Tina Dietze | Belarus (BLR) Iryna Pamialova Nadzeya Papok Volha Khudzenka Maryna Pautaran |
* $^{SprintMen'sC-1200m}$ On 12 June 2019, the IOC stripped Lithuanian canoeist Jevgenij Shuklin of his silver medal.

### Gallery

Gallery of some of the gold medalists in the canoeing events:
* Tony Estanguet, pictured in 2006, won the men's C-1 slalom for France
* Émilie Fer, also from France, pictured winning the women's K-1 slalom
* Sebastian Brendel, of Germany, won gold in the men's C-1 1,000m sprint
* David Smith was part of the Australian team that won the men's K-4 1,000m sprint

### By nation

| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | Germany | 3 | 2 | 3 | 8 |
| 2 | Hungary | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| 3 | Great Britain | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 4 | France | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 | Ukraine | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| 6 | Russia | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 7 | Australia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 8 | Italy | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 8 | New Zealand | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 8 | Norway | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 11 | Spain | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 12 | Belarus | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 13 | Canada | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 14 | Czech Republic | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 15 | Portugal | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 16 | Slovakia | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 17 | Poland | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 17 | South Africa | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 19 | Lithuania | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals (19 entries) | Totals (19 entries) | 16 | 16 | 16 | 48 |