Participate 753 canoes, and near 1200 canoeists, for the first time: Australia and New Zeland.

In the non-sports plan Southafrica owed al blockade of the UN does not participate, but not thus its better canoeists, Chalupsky son, participates with Belgium.

But the large protagonists were the Olympic Spaniards, Herminio Menéndez and Luis G. Ramos Misioné, that gained to the couple "Belgian" with 1 h 12min. 48 seg.