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Punch of delight: Brabants celebrates
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Power: Brabants led from start to finish
"Four years ago I had unfinished business. I was good four years ago but I wasn't this good."
Tim Brabants
Kayak K-1 1000m:
Gold: Tim Brabants (GB)
Silver: Eirik Veraas Larsen (Nor)
Bronze: Ken Wallace (Aus)
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Flying doctor Tim Brabants dominated the Kayak 1000m final to bag Great Britain's 18th gold medal of the Beijing Olympics and paddle his way into history.
Brabants became the first British paddler to win a canoeing flatwater Olympic gold with a power-packed performance that saw him lead from start to finish at Shunyi, where Team GB had enjoyed great success in the rowing.
Going into the final with an Olympic bronze from eight years ago and being the current European and world champion, Branbants was a big favourite but there was danger all around him.
The 31-year-old, who has taken time out of sport to practise medicine, needed a good start - but he got a brilliant one as he flew out of the trap and led even the notorious fast starter Adam van Koeverden from Canada.
Challenge
Those two led at 500m but defending champion Eirik Larsen from Norway came looming up just after halfway and was looking dangerous.
Larsen became the main challenger but Brabants would not be caught, even though fast-finishing Aussie Ken Wallace came from nowhere to challenge, but both men were repelled by the sheer power of Brabants who never flinched and took it out right through the line.
"That was exactly the race plan we wanted, that is what we have been working on all year in how to race an Olympic final," said Brabants.
"In the first two strokes there was no doubt I was going to win the race. No-one was going to come past me, I felt fantastic.
"I know it is easy to say when I won but right from the start line I was going to win the race."
Unfinished business
"Four years ago I had unfinished business," Brabants added, after he failed to add to his Sydney bronze in Athens.
"I was good four years ago but I wasn't this good.
"The guys at the last Olympics deserved to get those medals."
The doctor from Walton-on-Thames added: "It doesn't really feel real but that was what we have been working towards.
"The times when you are absolutely falling to pieces in training this is what it is for and what it has resulted in."
