This is Tim Brabants from Chertsey. He is an A+E doctor and a current Olympic champion. He has an MBE, collected shortly after winning his kayaking gold in Beijing 2008. Tim is old enough to compete as a veteran club kayaker. Instead, he's out there performing against the very best in the world.
I spoke to Tim on my show just after he'd won the race which confirmed his selection for London 2012. Today I met him for the first time at Eton Dorney, the Olympic rowing, sprint canoeing and kayaking venue (very impressive, by the way). It was the first time the kayakers had put their Team GB uniforms on and the mood was, ahem, buoyant.
Tim is just about the nicest man you could wish to meet. Determined, modest, polite, disarmingly grateful for what has come his way, and clearly reluctant to spend much time talking about the incredible amount of hard, thankless work he must have done over the years. Years I spent, er...
Tim's day job is saving peoples' lives. He also just happens to be a world-class athlete with a golden past, and still possibly a golden summer ahead of him. He has, quietly and successfully, already achieved an incredible amount.
He's only 35.
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