Brabants reaches final

Brabants, the event's world champion, clocked the day's fastest time and dominated the race from the gun to secure an automatic berth in the final.

"I didn't really want to send a message, it's more like I wanted to remind myself why I came here, I wanted to reassure myself by winning the heat," Brabants said.

He added that van Koeverden would be the man to keep an eye on in the final.

"He's my main rival for the medal, I'm the only person who has beat him this year," Brabants said.

Van Koeverden, the reigning Olympic champion in the shorter, 500 metre event, said it was not worth reading too much into Monday's races.

"It was just a preliminary race, (I was) just getting my feet in the water," he said after winning the second heat.

In the men's 1,000 metre canoe singles preliminaries, Hungary's Attila Vajda ran away from the field to secure his spot as the event's favourite.

"I tried to rehearse the strategy I want to use in the final, I just wanted to sit on the field until the halfway mark ... then take off with two or three spurts," Vajda said.

"I think there are three people to watch for in the final, (Spain's) David Cal, (Germany's) Andreas Dittmer, who won several Olympics and wants to finish his last one with a nice win, and there's a young Canadian, Thomas Hall who I think is worth watching," Vajda said.

Cal automatically qualified for Friday's final after winning his heat while Dittmer and Hall will have to race in the semi-finals on Wednesday to earn a place in the final.

In the men's kayak 1,000 metre pairs event, the German and Hungarian boats won their heats and will likely battle for gold while in the men's 1,000 metre canoe pairs event Germany and Belarus took top spots.

Germany also took top early spots in the women's 500 metre kayak four race and the men's 1,000 metre kayak event.