Canoeing at the 1980 Moskva Summer Games:

[Matija Ljubek] of Yugoslavia was the defending Olympic and 1978 World Champion, while [Tamás Wichmann] of Hungary was the 1976 Olympic bronze medalist and reigning World Champion, as well as the 1978 World runner-up. Both were present in at the 1980 Summer Olympics to vie for gold, but there were an array of strong challengers in the field. The 1977 World Champion and 1978 and 1979 World bronze medalist nation of Romania was represented by [Lipat Varabiev], while the 1976 Olympic and 1977 World runner-up Soviet Union sent [Serhiy Postriekhin]. Bulgaria’s [Lyubomir Lyubenov], meanwhile, was the most recent World runner-up.

Varabiev defeated both Lyubenov and Postriekhin in the first opening heat, while Wichmann took the second and helped relegate Ljubek to the repêchage, where he advanced as the slowest qualifier. Lyubenov was surprisingly powerful in the final, however, and won gold with little trouble, while Postriekhin came in for silver with breathing room in both directions. These two competitors thus traded places from the previous day’s C-1 500, which had been won by the Soviet. There was a more exciting battle for the final podium spot, but it was not between any of the favorites. [Libor Dvořák] of Czechoslovakia and [Eckhard Leue] of East Germany were very close as they approached the finish line, but the latter edged out the former to capture the bronze medal.