Brabants revives medical career

Brabants won Britain's first ever canoeing gold medal on Friday

Olympic medal-winning kayaker Tim Brabants has revealed he plans to return to work as a medical doctor.

Brabants, 31, of Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, won a gold in the 1000 metre single kayak and bronze in the the 500m event at the Beijing games.

"I will go back to the real world, to my day job and find a career for the next 18 months," he said.

After two years of full-time training he said he would not be able to work unsupervised straight away.

"I will probably work for free for a couple of months to get my skills back and make sure I am confident to practise medicine again before searching around for a job somewhere," he said.

London 2012 is definitely on the cards Tim Brabants

Eight years ago in Sydney, Brabants became the first British kayaker to stand on the Olympic podium when he won bronze in the 1000m event.

After finishing fifth in Athens he took 18 months off to pursue his medical career in Jersey.

He plans to do the same thing again before turning his attentions to London 2012 and a home Olympics.

"London 2012 is definitely on the cards," he said yesterday. "I will be young enough and I really want to compete in a home Olympics.

"I haven't cleared it with the wife yet but she is really happy with how I have done this weekend."

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