It wasn’t planned this way. After achieving his Olympic ambitions in Beijing, where he won gold and silver medals respectively in the K1 1000 and 500m events, Brabants returned for a third and, as far as he was concerned, final time to his stop-start medical career.
He had The Conversation with the medical authorities in Nottingham. "They asked me ‘Are you back permanently now?’," he recalls. "I felt like I was."

But he soon realised he wasn’t.

Conversations with his Australian mates didn’t help, as they told him how competing at a home Olympic increased the experience by "tenfold." He confesses: "Even though I had achieved my Olympic ambition of a gold medal, the 2012 Games were always at the back of my mind."

But making the decision to commit full-time to a fourth Olympics - he won  bronze in 2000, and finished a frustrated fifth in 2004 -was anything but easy.

"It was unfortunate to have to resign for a third time from medicine," he says. "I did so reluctantly because I had really enjoyed my time at QMC, but the authorities were really supportive about it."

Although Brabants was working 13-14 hour days in his position as a registrar specialising in people with respiratory problems - part of his training programme within Accident and Emergency - he found the routine relaxing inasmuch as it freed him from the mental rigour of competition.

"I was dealing with all sorts of problems, and I got to do lots of procedures," he says. "A number of my patients had suffered from a stroke, and I often had to do a chest drain, where you put a plastic tube in the drain fluid from the lungs. You work stupid hours, and it’s hard and stressful at times. But it does give you a kind of rest from the demands of your sport. "

One other unexpected bonus was the regular opportunity to show off what he describes as "a bit of a party trick" involving a peak flow meter, into which patients are asked to blow sharply to measure their lung capacity and power. "I can hit the end of a meter," Brabants points out with a chuckle. "It’s quite nice being an athlete and a bit of a freak as well..."

But beyond the enjoyments and satisfactions of his daily - or nightly - work, Brabants has found his involvement with medicine understandably difficult over the years. "I lead a sort of double life," he says. "And it is very, very frustrating to me to see the people I was at medical school with now reaching jobs at high levels. I’m a registrar, and some of my friends are now close to consultant status.

"But I am grateful for having been able to reach the levels I have in sport. And to do that you have to be full-time."



In the months following his return from Beijing, Brabants had attempted to assuage his huge competitiveness - and when we say huge, we are talking 6ft 2in and 14 stone of muscular commitment - by finding new fields of endeavour.

He took part in a triathlon based at the 2012 Olympic rowing venue, Eton Dorney lake. He won."I like to compete in triathlon, but much as I love the sport I am far too big for it."

He entered the 2008 Pairs Head event on the Thames for Tideway Scullers, teamed up with Britain’s leading single sculler Alan Campbell, who employed all his experience in providing Brabants with a new technique for travelling fast over water.

"Alan taught me how to scull, and I really, really enjoyed it," Brabants says. "When the boat is moving you can feel the run between the strokes. The only disconcerting thing for me was that we were going backwards!"

Back on land, however, Brabants was able to utilise his power to great effect on the static rowing machines. "In terms of the ergos, I was right up there with some of the Great Britain eight team," he announces with pride.

That power and endurance was also put to the test when he accepted the invitation of a consultant with whom he had worked at a previous posting in Jersey and took part in an 18-miles rowing race from Sark to Jersey.

"That turned out to be a trial by fire," he recalls. "It took us just over two hours, and I was thinking to myself ‘What have I got myself into here?’ We were well placed at the finish, but I didn’t enjoy the rowing while it happened. The blisters on my hands burst quite early on in the race."

Brabants is now back to a more familiar competitive environment, however, as he starts what will be two years of intensive work under the direction of the man who has coached him for the last 15 years, Eric Farrell.

Farrell has accompanied his charge on a long and emotional journey that ended in that memorable triumph in China, after which Brabants memorably commented: "I knew from the first two strokes that I was going to win the race."

Sadly, although his father, Peter, was there to witness his triumph, Brabants’ mother Liz had died three years earlier. When Brabants achieved his first global gold, winning the 1000m event at the 2007 World Championships, he laid the flowers he had received at the presentation ceremony upon his mother’s grave.

But he insists he did not, as was reported, dedicate the race to her. "I don’t really understand dedicating a race to someone," he says. "That may sound a bit detached - but as a doctor you need to become quite detached to work effectively. You need to be realistic about things."

Realism is also something Brabants is capable of in a sporting context. His reverse at the Athens Olympics, where he arrived in the final as the fastest qualifier with the world’s fastest time, only to finish in fifth place, taught him all he needed to know about the vicissitudes of top class sport.

As he looks ahead to London 2012, he is aware that the pressure upon him in two years’ time will be as great as it has ever been. "Pretty much everyone from Beijing is carrying straight on," he says. "A couple of the guys have taken time out, and there are some young guys coming through the ranks. But that’s good, because it will make it exciting."

For now, however, Brabants is turning his mind to the challenges ahead on the chill waters of the Thames. "I’m getting goose bumps thinking about it," he says. "But it’s also nerve-racking - because I know how much it hurts."

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames.