Tim Brabants

Olympic Gold Medal Canoeist

Tim Brabants is the current Olympic, World and European Champion in the K1 1000m event. Tim finished almost a boat’s length ahead of Norway\\'s Erik Veraas Larsen to win Britain’s first ever gold medal in canoeing at the Beijing Olympics last year. He also claimed a bronze medal in the K1 5oom event, bringing his medal tally up to 3 over 3 summer Olympics. A physician by profession, Tim’s career has seen him alternate repeatedly between medicine and sport.

Tim’s love of canoeing started at a young age. He was a particularly restless and energetic young boy and so his mother took him do a week long canoe course in the school holidays. It was there that the challenging and focused Tim Brabants got hooked on flatwater racing and he never looked back. At 18, he won his first prize of Bronze in the Junior World Championships.

Although best-known as a sprinter, Brabants\\' first success as a senior international had in fact come in the marathon. He won a silver medal at the 1997 European Championships in Italy. Sydney 2000 was Tim’s first Olympic Games, where he produced a superb last 250m to take the 1000m bronze. Tim then went on to win the European Championships in Hungry in 2002. The 2004 Athens Olympics however were a disappointment. Tim had won a European silver medal earlier in the season and was the fastest qualifier for the Olympic K-1 1000 m final with the world\\'s fastest time of 3:24.412. However in the final itself he finished in fifth place.

Tim took a year off from competitive canoeing in 2005 to complete his medical studies at the highly regarded University of Nottingham followed an 18 month spell as a working doctor, including six on A&E in Jersey. Putting his medical career on hold, 2006 was when Tim’s assault on Beijing really began. He made a triumphant return to the water with a World Championship silver medal in 2006, followed up with a brace of medals at the 2007 World Championships, gold in the K1 1000m and silver over 500m. At the 2008 European Championships in Milan, Brabants repeated his triumph in the K1 1000m event.

Instead of having some time off after the Olympics, never one to rest on his laurels, Tim competed in two triathlons, and added to his Beijing glory by winning them both! 

Tim is now resuming his medical career part time as a locum and studying for his next professional exams, as well as concentrating on his corporate speaking. His long term goal is another gold medal at London 2012.