Just arrived in Poznan, Poland for the first of the two World Cup events I will be competing in. For me, racing starts on friday with the K1 1000m heats and semis followed by the final on Saturday morning. The following weekend is the next World Cup event in Duisburg, Germany. These two competitions form part of the selection process for London 2012, so fingers crossed all goes to plan. Feeling good and really looking forward to racing K1 internationally again. Highlights should be on Eurosport over the weekend. On wednesday and thursday this week are the second round Olympic qualification events here, where athletes get a second chance to qualify places for their country in events not already qualified. Good luck to our mens and womens K2 crews as well as our womens K1 and mens C1 entries. Also, a big good luck to all our GB Para Canoe athletes who are competing in their World Championships over the next two days. 

This is my last day in Cape Town sadly. I have had an excellent three months of solid training in the fantastic surroundings of South Africa with Ben Farrell, my UK training partner. We have both made huge gains in strength and fitness and for me this has been a far better winter season of preparation compared to last year when I was mainly in a sling! When we get back to the cold of the UK, it will be into the next phase of race preparation training when we start to see the benefits from the huge volumes of work we have put in out here. It is certainly going to be tough returning to England, not just because of the weather, but also leaving my South African wife and one year old daughter for another few weeks before they return to the UK. They have looked after Ben and I incredibly well, keeping us well fed and entertained! All focus now is on for the upcoming racing season through to the Olympic Games. We have one more warm weather camp which will be in Seville, Spain before domestic racing starts in April.

Sorry I haven't updated my website since May, terrible I know. There hasn't been all that much to update with particularly and mostly I have been using Twitter on a more regular basis @TimBrabants

This wasn't my best season of racing really thanks to injury causing me to miss most of last winters block of training, then illness causing more training to be missed in the early part of the season. This resulted in me being off the pace for selection, although much improved by the time of the World Championships. I raced the Worlds in K2 with Ben Farrell which was a lot of fun and probably the most enjoyable part of the season. We raced well and the boat felt great, just wasn't quite fast enough and we narrowly missed out on the A final. Awesome K1 1000m final. My good friends Adam Van Koeverden dominated the race with silver Anders Gustafsson and Erik Larsen not far behind. Can't wait to be racing with these top guys again next season.

After a short break, I am fully recovered and 6 weeks back into a heavy block of training. Feel the strength and fitness I was lacking this year returning rapidly. Still coached by Eric Farrell luckily (now Eric Farrell MBE thanks to HRH Queen Elizabeth acknowledging Eric's tireless contribution to our sport for the last 20 years). I have Ben Farrell as a training partner now and this has had a huge positive impact on things. We'll be heading to Cape Town shortly for a good long warm weather camp. Looking forward to getting back out there and training with the top SA paddlers too. 

Signed up with two new sponsors which I am very excited about - Cadbury chocolate and now part of team EDF. Follow the links on the sponsors page.

I'll make more of an effort to keep the site updated regularly, but if you are a Twitter user, follow me there!