2023 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships – Men's K1

The men's kayak event at the 2023 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships took place on 23 September 2023 at the Lee Valley White Water Centre in London, with the qualification heats on 21 September 2023.

Competition format
The event uses a three-round format with qualification heats, semifinal and final. Paddlers complete up to two runs in the heats, with the top ranked athletes starting last. In the first heat, the 30 fastest paddlers qualify automatically for the semifinal, whilst the rest compete in the second heat for additional 10 qualification spots. The final rank of non-qualifying athletes is determined by their second run score. Paddlers start in the reverse order of their heats position in the semifinal and complete a single run, with the top 10 advancing to the final. The start list for the final is once again in reverse order of the semifinal results. The athlete with the best time in the single-run final is awarded gold.

A penalty of 2 seconds is awarded for touching a gate and a 50-second penalty is awarded for missing a gate or negotiating it in the opposite direction.

The heats setup had 23 gates including 6 upstream gates (3-11-12-15-19-23). The semifinal and final gate setup also had 23 gates with 6 upstream gates (3-11-12-15-19-23), but in a more difficult configuration, causing slower times.

Schedule
All times listed are UTC+1.

Results
British paddler Joseph Clarke was the last man to start after winning the semifinal and he managed to back up his semifinal run with another clean and fast run to win gold ahead of the Czech paddler Jiří Prskavec and Mathis Soudi from Morocco. For Clarke it was his first individual medal in the K1 event at the World Championships. Prskavec won his fifth medal in the discipline and third silver. Soudi made history by becoming the first African paddler to win any kind of medal at the Canoe Slalom World Championships.

There were 15 quota spots available for the 2024 Summer Olympics, one per country. The quota spots were secured by:
 * 🇬🇧 united kingdom
 * 🇨🇿 czech republic
 * 🇲🇦 morocco
 * undefined
 * 🇦🇺 australia
 * 🇮🇹 italy
 * 🇵🇱 poland
 * 🇪🇸 spain
 * undefined
 * 🇨🇳 china
 * 🇸🇪 sweden
 * 🇳🇿 new zealand
 * 🇯🇵 japan
 * 🇮🇪 ireland
 * 🇸🇰 slovakia

Penalties are included in the time shown. The fastest time in each round is shown in bold.