Hello my friends!!! Well, what can I tell you? Who said that going to work can be boring? Guess who I worked today? Well? No other than the K1 Beijing Olympic 2008 champion himself... Dr. Tim Brabant! Woohoo!!! That could never be any better than that, could it? It wasn't a matter of seeing a great sport person himself for a matter of few seconds, few minutes or few hours... but for my entire 12 hour shift!
The first time I heard of him (sorry Tim) was when I received an alumni email from my dear Alma Mater The University of Nottingham, an anouncement that he was heading for Beijing as part of the Team GB that I started to watch him closely (and yes, I watched him win the gold medal too and that was absolutely exciting... I can still remember how my heart raced during the game hahahaha!).
Anyway, as I was standing infront Tim during the ward round I thought he looked familiar to me and when I looked at his badge... I was like... Oh my gosh! It's him! Oh! I hope he doesn't read this, otherwise that'll be just embarassing. Then one of my patients asked for an autograph and he has been kind enough to give him one (Bless him! It really cheered my patient :))
The other thing that I found amazing about this person, is that eventhough he has been bringing so much pride and joy into this country, he didn't have that 'I am famous' behaviour. During the entire shift, he worked and he behaved as a good doctor and not a famous sports personality. What can I say... having that opportunity to work with such a great doctor and a person... I felt priviliged. I'd definitely be cheering for him during the London Olympics. I'd probably be telling everyone that he's my colleague hahaha! I just hope he doesn't read this though.
Triumphant Tim Brabants Below is a news extract that was released by The University of Nottingham Alumni Magazine Spring 2008
Going for Gold
Tim’s seeing double
'In the first of a series of interviews with our hopefuls Reflect talks to the current K1 World Canoe K1000m Champion Tim Brabants (Medicine 2002) who’s dreaming of not just of one gold medal but possibly two!
Former Nottingham students are entering the next phase of preparation for the Beijing Olympics as they bid to bring home gold medals for Great Britain.Current World 1000km canoe champion Tim Brabants has had the best run up possible to the most important sporting event of his life.“2007 was the best season of my career so far, winning 9 international medals, 4 of them Gold. It shows that I am training well and doing the right training for me. This gives me more confidence in what I am going to do over the next 8 months to the Olympics.“Great Britain hasn’t had a World Champion in over 20 years. It is something I have been striving to achieve since I first started to compete internationally at senior level in 1995. It is a new experience for me to be going into an Olympic Games as World Champion and in reality I couldn’t hope for better! “Of course there is increased pressure to reproduce this performance at the Olympics but I use this as a positive factor. There are many very talented athletes who I will be competing against and of those, only a few of us are capable of winning. It will come down to who performs the best on the day, and I am training hard to try and make sure that is me!”
Eight years ago Tim won a bronze medal at the Sydney Olympics and four years ago he finished a disappointing fifth. This winter Tim has already spent two weeks training at altitude in France and six weeks in the warm weather of Cape Town. The rest of 2008 will be spent with more training both at home and in Spain, the European Championships, three World Cup events and of course, the Olympic Games.“Training has been going really well this season so far and providing I remain injury free I will have as good a chance of winning a medal as I did at the Worlds last year. I will be very disappointed not to at least win a medal at the Olympics.Tim ‘s heavily focused on Beijing at the moment but he’s passionate about his and believes he’s still young enough to go on to compete in London 2012. “I qualified as a medical doctor at Nottingham University in 2002. Since then I have worked part-time and full-time. The last 18 months I have been training for my sport full time and doing medical courses occasionally to keep my skills up and brain working! I always plan to return to medicine when I retire from my sport, hopefully in emergency medicine.”
“I always kept a very low profile at the University as I was training before and after lectures every day and at weekends. I had very little time to socialize much with other University students. I still see a few of my closer colleagues around and keep in touch from time to time. I still own a flat in Nottingham and stay there quite a lot when I am back in the UK. It’s a great city and there are superb facilities all close by for training.“My real dream is to win an Olympic Gold medal. I shall be competing in two events at the Olympics so in reality, I hope to win two medals, maybe even two Golds! After that I shall focus on my medical career for a while but keep up the training too and see what happens.”
Please feel free the click the link below to see the men K1 finals at the Beijing Olympics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXuQ2xO5ND8
2 comments:
*helps you push your jaw back in*
SIS! hahaha I can imagine you! hahahahah Wow..lucky you for meeting a famous person and the best part..is him being super nice and humble!!! wait..are you still listening to me?? Or still on a dream land? hhehehee
Hahahaha! Sis, you're funny! It was a lovely shift sis... hectic and challenging but lovely :)
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