1981 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships

The 1981 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships were held in Nottingham, Great Britain.

The men's competition consisted of six Canadian (single paddle, open boat) and nine kayak events. Three events were held for the women, all in kayak.

This was the sixteenth championships in canoe sprint.

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
C-1 500 m	Olaf Heukrodt (GDR)	Gennadiy Liseichikov (URS)	János Sarusi Kis (HUN)
C-1 1000 m	Ulrich Papke (GDR)	Tamás Buday (HUN)	Jiří Vrdlovec (TCH)
C-1 10000 m	Tamás Wichmann (HUN)	Matija Ljubek (YUG)	Sergey Liminovich (URS)
C-2 500 m	Hungary László Foltán István Vaskúti	Soviet Union Edem Muradosilov Vigantas Zhekaitis	Bulgaria Liubomir Ljubenov Sevdalin Ilkov
C-2 1000 m	Romania Ivan Patzaichin Toma Simionov	East Germany Olaf Heukrodt Uwe Madeja	Soviet Union Edem Muradosilov Vigantas Zhekaitis
C-2 10000 m	Hungary Tamás Buday László Vaskúti	Romania Ivan Patzaichin Toma Simionov	Czechoslovakia Jiří Vrdlovec Petr Kubíček

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
K-1 500 m	Vladimir Parfenovich (URS)	Ion Bîrlădeanu (ROU)	Lars-Erik Moberg (SWE)
K-1 1000 m	Rüdiger Helm (GDR)	Ion Bîrlădeanu (ROU)	Einar Rasmussen (NOR)
K-1 10000 m	Einar Rasmussen (NOR)	Milan Janić (YUG)	István Fábián (HUN)
K-2 500 m	Soviet Union Vladimir Parfenovich Sergey Superata	Poland Waldemar Merk Daniel Wełna	East Germany Bernd Fleckeisen Frank Fischer
K-2 1000 m	Soviet Union Vladimir Parfenovich Sergey Superata	East Germany Bernd Fleckeisen Frank Fischer	Poland Waldemar Merk Daniel Wełna
K-2 10000 m	Soviet Union Nikolay Astapkovich Vladimir Romanovsky	Hungary István Szabó István Joós	Romania Ion Bîrlădeanu Nicușor Eșanu
K-4 500 m	Soviet Union Igor Gaydamaka Sergey Krivozheyev Jüri Poljans Aleksander Vodovatov	Sweden Jens Norqvist Lars-Erik Moberg Per-Inge Bengtsson Thomas Ohlsson	East Germany Frank-Peter Bischof André Wohllebe Rüdiger Helm Harald Marg
K-4 1000 m	East Germany Rüdiger Helm Frank-Peter Bischof Peter Hempel Harald Marg	Soviet Union Sergey Kolokolov Aleksandr Volkovskiy Alexander Yermilov Nikolay Baranov	West Germany Matthias Seack Andreas Flunker Frank Renner Oliver Seack
K-4 10000 m	Soviet Union Alexander Yermilov Nikolay Baranov Sergey Kolokolov Vasiliy Silenkov	Poland Leszek Jamroziński Andrzej Klimaszewski Ryszard Oborski Zdzisław Szubski	Great Britain Stephen Brown Christopher Canham Stephan Jackson Alan Williams

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
K-1 500 m	Birgit Fischer (GDR)	Éva Rakusz (HUN)	Agneta Andersson (SWE)
K-2 500 m	East Germany Birgit Fischer Carsta Kühn	Sweden Agneta Andersson Susanne Wiberg	Romania Agafia Buhaev Maria Ştefan
K-4 500 m	East Germany Birgit Fischer Carsta Kühn Kathrin Stoll Roswitha Eberl	Soviet Union Natalya Filonich Larissa Nadviga Inna Zhipulina Lyubov Orechova	Sweden Karin Olsson Agneta Andersson Susanne Wiberg Eva Karlsson

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	East Germany (GDR)	7	2	2	11
2	Soviet Union (URS)	6	4	2	12
3	Hungary (HUN)	3	3	2	8
4	Romania (ROU)	1	3	2	6
5	Norway (NOR)	1	0	1	2
6	Sweden (SWE)	0	2	3	5
7	Poland (POL)	0	2	1	3
8	Yugoslavia (YUG)	0	2	0	2
9	Czechoslovakia (TCH)	0	0	2	2
10	Bulgaria (BUL)	0	0	1	1
	Great Britain (GBR)	0	0	1	1
	West Germany (FRG)	0	0	1	1
Totals (12 entries)		18	18	18	54

Medal summary