At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Kalmikovs decided to drop half of his medley double, and experiment instead with 100 m breaststroke. He achieved FINA B-standards of 1:04.89 (100 m breaststroke), 2:16.30 (200 m breaststroke), and 2:04.83 (200 m individual medley) from the European Championships in Helsinki. On the first day of the Games, Kalmikovs placed thirty-fourth in the 100 m breaststroke. Swimming in heat four, he enjoyed a sprint finish with Puerto Rico's Arsenio López, as they both hit the wall first in a matching time of 1:04.02. Three days later, in the 200 m breaststroke, Kalmikovs established a new Latvian record of 2:16.21 to pull off a nineteenth-place effort from the heats, but missed the semifinal cut by more than half a second (0.50). In his final event, 200 m individual medley, Kalmikovs placed twenty-fourth on the morning prelims. Swimming again in heat four, he came up short in second place by 0.11 of a second behind New Zealand's Dean Kent in a lifetime best of 2:04.18.