Declan Burns competed in the men’s K-2 500 metres and K-4 1000 metres canoe sprint at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, suffering what he later described as the worst race of his life in the K-2 500 alongside Brendan O’Connell. The pair had completed two excellent time trials at full effort just two days before the competition – a confidence-building exercise that had the counterproductive effect of depleting their sharpness and leaving them well below their capabilities on race day. Their time of 1:56.86 was the second slowest in the opening heats, thirteen seconds behind heat winners Romania. The repechage was paddled in a considerably faster 1:47.56 but the pair were eliminated. The K-4 1000m quartet finished second last of the twenty-one competitors.

Declan Burns was a full-time athlete preparing for the Games alongside coach Keith Burns, his brother, while the other canoeists combined preparation with their day jobs. He went on to compete at the Moscow 1980 and Seoul 1988 Olympics.

Declan went on to gain national attention by competing in World Superstars