[4] Three months later, at age 17, Martikán was in sixth place after the first run of the canoe slalom singles event at the 1996 Olympics.

With nothing to lose, he went all out on the second run and just bettered the score of defending champion Lukáš Pollert of the Czech Republic.

He entered the 2000 Olympics as the favourite, having consistently finished near the top in every major competition and in each World Cup series.

At the Sydney Games, Martikán registered the best score in the qualifying round, but was only in fifth place after the first run of the final.

After the second run, it appeared that Martikán had regained the Olympic title, but the referees controversially decided to award him a two-second penalty which pushed him to second place, only 12 hundredths of a second behind Estanguet.

It was also found that the killed man was highly intoxicated at the time of the accident, in dark outside the inhabited area.

With Martikán facing actual incarceration due to the violation of his probation terms (during his Australia's training camp he should process the license returning, a day after returning home while picking up the letter from the post office about driving license returning, the police surprisingly wait for him outside the building and he got in troubles...), then-president Rudolf Schuster, amid grave criticism, granted Martikán a presidential pardon,[8] which besides sparing him from jail time effectively meant removal of the conviction from his criminal record.