Maksim Opalev
Maksim Alexandrovich Opalev is a retired Russian sprint canoeist. Competing in three Summer Olympics, he has won a complete set of medals in the C-1 500 m event.
Opalev's potential was evident when he won two gold medals as a sixteen-year-old at the 1995 World Junior Championships in Yamanashi, Japan. Competing against opponents two years older than himself he won the C-2 1000 m title as well as the C-4 500 m gold. At the next edition of the world junior championships, in Lahti, Finland, in 1997, Opalev won the C-1 1000 m title.
At the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships, Opalev has won 20 medals between 1997 and 2007. This includes eleven golds, six silvers, and three bronzes. Opalev also won two more medals at the 2003 world championships in Gainesville, Georgia, United States with golds in the C-4 200 m and C-4 500 m events, but were stripped of those medals when teammate Sergey Ulegin failed a doping test.
