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Michelle, we understand, would possibly quite like Brabants to bring an end to this status quo and get a proper job. But Brabants is now caught juggling his twin driving forces, medicine and paddling. “In a sense it's much more useful trying to save lives than winning the 1,000 metres in Olympic Games,” he said, sarcastically. But he added: “The feeling I've got now is: you get greedy, medal fever.”

He could start by feeding that greed today when he goes in the final of the 500metres kayak, but the most likely long-term scenario is this: another half of an Olympiad back as a medic followed by another half training for 2012. His peers from medical school will thus forge even farther ahead, but those peers in the kayak he feels he can always catch.

UK Sport targets gap in the kayaking market

Is Tim Brabants's gold, a British first in kayak or canoe, just a blip from nowhere or is there more to come?

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The best answer is a reflection of the way Olympic sport is now being run in this country because UK Sport has gone out actively looking for more success. More specifically, after close analysis, it has identified the four-woman kayak race as an event in which the field is not particularly strong. A medal can be targeted.

Germany and Hungary are world leaders, Poland are quite good, Australia pinched a bronze in the event yesterday. Thereafter few countries contend.

A search began in December 2006 to find a Britain K-4 team. Talent-spotting specialists from UK Sport started working with swimming and rowing to try to identify athletes who had not quite made it, but who had transferable physical skills. They contacted the British Surf Life Saving Association, too.

Soon, 95 women were invited to an assessment day. Eleven women were eventually invited on an eight-week course that included five days of camping at the wet World Championships in Duisburg, Germany, last summer.

Two girls are left: Vicky Towers, a former university-level swimmer, and Angela Hannah, who did a spot of rowing and was a former junior hockey international. The idea is that these two will be ready for 2012, to be moulded either with girls already on the kayaking programme or with other girls who may come from “Girls For Gold”, another talent-spotting programme.

Is this smart? The answer may come from Australia. They have no history in the K-4 but won bronze yesterday in a boat carrying a former swimmer and a former athlete.

So if UK Sport has done its job well, Brabants could be the start, not the end. UK Sport has been looking for talented males, too. Eighteen months ago, it launched a campaign to identify Sporting Giants (6ft 3in-plus men, 5ft 11in-plus women) and, from that, there are five young men working full-time on a future as Olympic canoeists.