Jonny Brownlee, 31, is set to compete in the Men’s Triathlon in the Tokyo Olympic Games, while his brother Alistair, 33, is forced to watch at home after battling agonising injuries.
The Yorkshire-born brothers have been put in an unimaginable situation as one follows his Olympics dream while the other’s were slashed.
But it’s not the first time they have faced adversity together, and it’s clear from an incredible sacrifice Alistair once made that the brothers will always support each other.
The incident took place in Mexico in 2016, during the World Triathlon Series.
Dazed with heat stroke and struggling even to stand, Jonny had to be helped over the line by Alistair.
Alistair, who pushed Jonny over the line ahead of him in second, said the condition his brother was in was “as close to death as you can be in sport” had he not received immediate medical attention at the finish line.
He also claimed he would have done the same thing for anyone else.
(Image: Getty Images)
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Following the swim and the cycle, Jonny was leading comfortably heading into the final kilometre of the 10km run, but the heat began to take its toll and he started to weave across the course.
Jonny stopped at the side of the road but Alistair, who had been running comfortably in third, put his arm around his brother and all but carried him along the final few hundred metres and then pushed him across the line.
South African Henri Schoeman, who won bronze behind the Brownlees in Rio, had overtaken Jonny to win the race.
(Image: Getty Images)
Jonny was taken to the hospital straight afterwards, so his second-place step on the podium was left empty, but The World Triathlon said Jonny’s absence was a precaution.
“Following the race [Jonny Brownlee] was in recovery and doing a lot better,” they tweeted.
“But just for safety precautions he was sent to the hospital.”Despite his touching sacrifice, Alistair appeared less than sympathetic, hilariously tweeting: “I wish the flipping idiot had just paced it right and won the race.
“He could have jogged the last 2km,” he added.
(Image: Getty Images)
Jonny later tweeted from his hospital bed to thank his big brother.
“Not how I wanted to end the season, but gave it everything. Thanks @AliBrownleetri, your loyalty is incredible,” he gushed.
Jonny went into the final race of the season in Cozumel, Mexico, in second place in the standings behind Spanish competitor Mario Mola, with Alistair out of contention, having missed earlier races.
This was not the last race Jonny would compete in while Alistair was unable to.
At the Tokyo Olympics, which began last week, Jonny will perform in the Men’s Triathlon, but Alistair’s injuries led him to fall short of a place in the British men’s team this year.
(Image: AFP)
The two-time Olympic champion was disqualified for “ducking” a rival (pushing him under the water) at the recent World Triathlon Championship Series in Leeds, which he says was an accident.
He also says he knew he was not fit enough to take it on, and he now faces surgery on his injured ankle.
“I wasn’t very fit stood on the Leeds start line,” he told theWorld Triathlon Podcast.
“I’d had three months of hell leading into that, knowing that I had this ankle problem.
(Image: Getty Images Europe)
“Knowing at the same time that there was nothing I could do about it really, and just doing absolutely everything I could to be in half-decent shape to try and perform. And ultimately it didn’t work out.
“A lot of me thought in the lead-up to it that actually I just shouldn’t race, there’s probably not a lot of positives that could come from racing.
“But I thought ultimately, ‘it’s in Leeds, it’s your last chance, give yourself the chance, you might get very lucky and it might work out differently’.
“I knew I was always up against it and it was gonna be a challenge but I thought ‘one last time, give yourself a chance and see what happens’.”
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He added that he believes this is now the end of his long-distance racing career.
“To be honest, a lot of me over the last three months has asked myself ‘why did I even try to get back to the Olympics?’,” he added.
“I was always up against it. I knew running quick and training for short-distance triathlon was a risk for injuries.
“I knew, being older, I was slightly slower and found it harder to do that quick work. I knew it was stacked against me.
“I knew that even if I got to the start line in Tokyo in the best possible shape I could have got to, I knew it wouldn’t have been where I was at Rio or in London. I knew I couldn’t get back to that level.
(Image: Peter Powell / Sunday Mirror)
“And then obviously I got injured and that was really frustrating and gave me months of stress.
“And I asked myself why had I done it. That is the power of sport and the Olympic Games. That’s the answer to that question – I did it because I love competing in triathlon at the top in the Olympic distance and I love the Olympic Games.”
Asked about Jonny’s chances in Tokyo, Alistair told The Guardian: “Jonny is in great shape. He’s prepared for the conditions, he is fit, healthy and ready to go.
“To be honest he’s not the favourite, he has been in the last couple of Games but there are no favourites in that race really, it’s wide open.
“He has a very good chance of a medal; winning is probably relatively unlikely but, that said, it might happen.”
Jonny also wrote in the Metro about how it felt to reach the Olympics without his brother by his side.
“I’m training so hard right now I feel a little bit of a vacant person. I also feel like I’ve been on pause a little bit, having been selected for the team the best part of two years ago,” he said.
“Having seen my brother Alistair’s struggles to make the squad, right up against it until the last chance in Leeds sadly came and went recently, I am so glad I was picked when I was and that I didn’t have that pressure.
“Al had not run at all for the couple of weeks leading into Leeds — 90% of athletes would not have started that race last month. I knew he would struggle to get round despite people talking about him qualifying for Tokyo that day.”
He continued: “I really felt for him and in the end, it was out of his control — a fact I know he will have hated. It was very hard to see him struggle. But once he knew he wasn’t going, it made it a lot easier for him to decide to have ankle surgery.
“He has been coming out with my training group on his e-mountain bike. He also sent me a message about Tokyo, backing me to do well.
“It will definitely be strange and different without him there on the startline. I’m used to going through the whole process with him.”
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