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.
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.
| Rank | Canoer | Country | Time | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maxim Opalev | 1:51.048 | QF | ||
| 2 | György Kolonics | 1:51.492 | QF | ||
| 3 | 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 |
| 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 | 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 |
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 | 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 |
The final took place on 1 October.
| Rank | Canoer | Country | Time | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| György Kolonics | 2:24.813 | ||||
| Maxim Opalev | 2:25.809 | ||||
| 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.