A few days ago Alistair Brownlee was sorting out his attic when he stumbled on something unexpected: his Team GB rucksack from London 2012. “I hadn’t touched it since the Olympics,” he says, laughing. “My helmet was still in it, as well as a pair of shorts and a T-shirt I’d warmed up in. There was even a bar that I had half eaten and put back in.” A shake of the head. “It was just … there. Amazing.”
And Brownlee’s Olympic triathlon gold? Well, that has pride of place in his sock drawer. “I’ve never been that bothered about medals,” he says. “Although that one is precious to me, the achievement matters more.”
Alistair’s younger brother, Jonny, is no showy sentimentalist either. He keeps his Olympic bronze medal in a pillowcase in his house.
On Sunday they retrace their steps – and strokes and pedals – on the Hyde Park course that made them household names for the final time. Next year the British leg of the World Triathlon Series moves to Leeds and, while so many of their memories of 2012 remain gloriously vivid – Alistair pounding clear of the Spaniard Javier Gómez to claim gold; Jonny turning puce then puking up after holding on to bronze; the perforating cheers of 250,000 motivators – they are ready to move on. “I’m glad to leave it behind,” says Alistair. “We’ve raced there a lot of times. We’ve had some good days and bad days. It will be nice to draw a line under it.”
The Brownlees also hope to leave behind the niggles and injuries that have interrupted their careers too often since that day. There used to be a golden rule in men’s triathlon: when a Brownlee raced, they won. Coming into the last Olympics, Alistair was the reigning men’s world champion and had won 12 of his previous 15 world series races. Jonny, meanwhile, had finished on the podium in his previous 13 races at elite level, winning six. Now, though, that golden rule comes with a caveat: provided they are also 100% fit.
There are encouraging signs. Jonny has won two of his three world triathlon series races in 2015, in Auckland and the Gold Coast, while Alistair – who started his season late because of injury – won in Cape Town and came second in Yokohama despite feeling the worst he has ever felt in a race. “It was horrific,” he says. “I got out of the swim and I just felt awful. I’m normally the one shouting at people to do stuff on the bike but I just couldn’t. But on the positive side I have no injury problems and the two races I have had so far haven’t done my fitness justice. I’m a bit better than that and hopefully I can show that in London.”
Their primary aim this year, though, is to qualify for next year’s Olympics as quickly as possible, something they will achieve if they make the podium in the Rio test event in August and at the grand final in Chicago in September. And they are already licking their lips about the punishingly hard course in Rio, with its choppy 1,500m sea swim and a brutal 40km bike circuit, before a flatter 10km run to finish.
“It’s likely to be a beach start, so people will be already a bit tired when they hit the water after running in the sand,” says Jonny. “The bike, from what we’ve heard, contains a very steep hill and it’ll be eight times up there. I’m very excited about that. It suits us because it wipes quite a lot of people out straight away. The harder the better for us.”
Alistair is determined to become the first man to defend his Olympic title but he has fresh challenges on his mind, too: doing a marathon and an ironman. “I’ve done triathlon since I was eight years old,” he says. “It’s been Olympic focus up to now but also I’ve always been very aware and followed the longer distance side of the sport,” he says. “That’s very important to me. So after Rio I intend to have a bash at a marathon and that might be a nice way to lead into an ironman.”
When it comes to the marathon, Alistair reckons he could run somewhere in the 2hr 10m – 2:15 range, which would be a deeply impressive time. Only Mo Farah has run under 2:10.30 in the past decade. “Going under 2:10 is probably a bit quick,” he says. “I’ll be going for a nicely paced marathon on a flat course with a tailwind. That said, I might cross the line in Rio and be fourth and think flipping hell, that’s it, I’m carrying on with triathlon. Who knows?”
It is perhaps wise to add a qualifier. Last year Alistair won individual and team gold at the Commonwealth Games but his audacious plan to run the 10,000m on the track, too, was scuppered because he missed the qualifying race through injury. “If I had been in any kind of shape in the trial I probably would have just sneaked in,” he says. “It is a massive career regret.”
For now, though, the focus remains on the day job. The biggest challenge over Sunday’s race, a shorter sprint triathlon (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run) than the Brownlees would like, is likely to come from the Spaniard Mario Mola, who won last year’s race in Hyde Park, but the Brownlees believe Gómez – who will not be in London – is still their main rival.
“I have a lot of respect for Javier but I wouldn’t call him a great friend,” Jonny says. “We race on the same French team together but we keep each other at arm’s length. I can tell you he always has pizza then tarte tatin before a race but I don’t know what sort of training he does or what races he is going to do. It is incredible what he achieved in the sport. Although the big thing he is missing is an Olympic gold medal – hopefully we can stop him getting one.”
Fifteen months out from Rio the pair are confident they can again deliver over the full distance in the Olympics. “I don’t think there has been a run as fast as London 2012 in the past three years, to be honest,” says Alistair. “And if we are both fully fit, we are still the ones to beat.”
