London 2012 Olympics: Ten Essential Facts about …. Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee

 
Jenni Marsh6 August 2012

Britain’s top two triathletes are brothers and they both want to win gold. Here are Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee’s vital statistics.

Age: 24 (Alistair) 22 (Jonathan)
Born: Dewsbury, West Yorkshire
Sport: Triathlon

1. Currently, the brothers’ success is ranked by age, with Alistair the 2011 ITU World Champion in Beijing and world number one, while Jonathan was runner-up.

2. Between them, the Brownlee brothers have won eight of the past ten races in the ITU (International Triathlon Union) World Triathlon Series.

3. They credit their success to growing up in the rugged Yorkshire terrain. Alistair says: “When you get out of bed every morning to train, it helps if you are inspired by the landscape.”

4. The brothers still live together with their childhood friend Alec Duffield and their birthdays are just seven days apart.

5. Alistair and Jonathan have a younger brother called Edward. But the burley 16-year-old isn’t interested in cycling. “He is a bigger build but he never had the same determination,” Jonathan says. “He prefers rugby.”

6. Their uncle Simon Hearnshaw is also a triathlete who introduced his newphews to the sport.

7. Both boys excelled in sport at the independent Bradford Grammar School. Alistair won swimming medals, while Jonathan was school cricket captain and dreamed of playing for Leeds.

8. Alistair left a place reading medicine at Cambridge University to focus on triathlon and study at University of Leeds, where his brother is reading history.

9. While the boys are best friends, they are also bitter rivals. When Alistair represented Great Britain at junior level, Jonathan remembers thinking: “I want that.”

10. Alistair’s biggest disappointment came at Beijing when as a 20-year-old he was leading the Olympic triathlon only to finish 12th.

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