Finish tower at Lake Lanier where the 2003 championships took place. Photo circa 2010. This was also the same finish used for the canoe sprint and rowing competitions at the 1996 Summer Olympics
Sergey Ulegin of Russia won two golds (C-4 200 m, C-4 500 m) and one silver (C-2 500 m), but was stripped of those medals when he tested positive for doping. His teammates in the C-2 500 m (Aleksandr Kostoglod), C-4 200 m (Kostoglod, Roman Kruglyakov, and Maksim Opalev), and C-4 500 m (Kostoglod, Kruglyakov, and Opalev) events also lost their medals as a result of Ulegin's positive test. Ulegin received a two-year suspension.