Gold is just what the doc ordered

He certainly gets hooked on the idea of making history. "It's fantastic," he said. "I was very happy last year to win the world championships - it was the first time a British athlete has done it in 20 years - and now this is the first time a British athlete has won a gold medal in the sport of kayak racing.

"It's an incredible feeling to be Olympic champion - it's been a long time coming. It was a fantastic race, probably the most enjoyable race I have ever had and I am really pleased, not just for me but for my coach, friends and family who have given me so much support."

It's a sport which he has always maintained is a tougher business than rowing but he certainly made it look easy today.

"I know it is easy to say when I won but right from the start line I knew I was going to win," said Brabants.

The first half of the race was played out as a straight head-to-head between Brabants and Canada's chasing Adam van Koeverden, before the man from Walton began to break him inexorably with 350 metres to go.

Norway's reigning champ Eirik Larsen, who ended with the silver, and the Australian Ken Wallace, who moved up from eighth to clinch bronze, tried to apply late pressure but Brabants, who'd effectively led from start to finish, was not to be denied, demonstrating Redgrave-like strength to win by just over a second in 3min 26.323sec and add the gold to the bronze he won eight years ago in Sydney.

In between, Brabants had gone to the Athens Games and, though he had looked set for a medal after qualifying brilliantly, he blew it in the final, finishing fifth. It left him with "unfinished business" and a determination to improve dramatically. "I was good four years ago but I wasn't this good," he said.

Perhaps a sabbatical helped for after Athens, Brabants took a year out of the sport to concentrate on his 'other' career in medicine. He was a Senior House Officer in the A & E department at the General Hospital in Jersey for seven months until last year but then took a career break to concentrate full-time on preparing for the Games, while aiming to do some locum work in the off season.

He has often reckoned there is no comparison between his two lines of work, apart from them featuring plenty of anti-social hours. "At the end of the day, if life or death is the work side of things, the pressure of getting things right is that much higher," he conceded recently.

"I think my work as a doctor compliments being an athlete pretty well with the adrenaline rush. I found that when I was just taking time out from sport I wasn't missing out on that adrenaline rush and the endorphins that you get from an A&E department."

But as a doctor, you don't get thousands coming to watch you at work, he laughed.

The British flags being waved at Shunyi reminded him he had been among friends here and that, in 2012, it would be even more of a special feeling defending his title - or titles - four years hence.

"London is definitely on the cards now. Don't be surprised to see me in London ready to represent Great Britain again," said the man who paddles at the Royal Canoe Club at Teddington.

He'll be 35 then - but like Redgrave, he is insatiable.