UK Sport

Brabants on top of the world

Matthew Crawcour 13 August 2007

Tim Brabants chose a great time to put down a marker at the World Flatwater Canoeing Championships in Duisburg. The Sydney Olympic bronze medallist, showed that he was back at the top of his game, by taking World Championship gold and silver medals in the K1 1,000m and 500m respectively.

Brabants’ performances came a year ahead of the Beijing Olympics and produced an emotional response from British Team Leader Alan Williams, who professed that it was the best he’d ever seen him race. The added significance of his weekend performances came in the Beijing places they cemented for the GB squad.

Brabants acknowledged after the 1000m final on Saturday that it had been tough,” I always knew it would be difficult out there today”. There were only ever two boats in contention for gold once the race had got underway. Canadian, Adam Van Koeverden took a slim lead at the 250m mark, but Brabants was only two tenths of a second behind him. The positions were reversed as they crossed the halfway point with Brabants holding no more than a tenth of a second on Van Koeverden. Brabants then made a move opening the lead out to just under half a second.

The Canadian responded and got his nose in front again at 750m, but Brabants found the power he needed in the last 60 metres and took the line by half a second (about 1 metre) from Van Koeverden.

Sunday’s 500m race was less straightforward after Brabants got off to, what he described as 'a poor start' and was back in 6th place at the 250m point, almost a second down on the leader - once again Canada's Van Koeverden. Brabants never gave up and pulled his boat through the water faster than the rest of the field in the second half of the race, to take the silver medal from Marek Twardowski of Poland by 0.06 second.

It was an outcome that disappointed Brabants, but he was able to put things into perspective afterwards:

“After yesterday, any result other than gold is a disappointment but I'm happy with that after the start I got”.

Brabants now heads off to Beijing and the Olympic test event, which will be held in two weeks’ time.

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