Brownlee: My brother will bounce back again

Jonny Brownlee insists there has been no power shift in triathlon's foremost family despite his silver in London yesterday and brother Alistair's dramatic collapse.

Alistair went into the event as the hot favourite having won all six of his previous World Championship Series races while Jonny was a junior trying to make his mark on the biggest stage.

All appeared well in Hyde Park as the 22-year-old emerged first from the swim and then stayed near the front on the ride before pushing the pace on the run.

Only his brother and Spain's Javier Gomez could live with him but his earlier exertions took their toll and, when Gomez kicked, the world champion could not respond.

While Jonny continued in pursuit of the Spaniard, Alistair struggled before staggering across the line in 10th place before being rushed to the medical tent suffering from exhaustion.

Jonny, though, has no doubt his brother will return stronger than ever at the next race in Kitzbuhel in three weeks' time. "I felt sorry for Alistair because he's a great champion but these things happen," said the 20-year-old. "Maybe he'd eaten something wrong.

"He's an incredible athlete and hasn't got a weakness at all and he's so tough. When he's tired he gets good training sessions out as well.
"He's still better than me but he had an unfortunate race and it happens. I had a really good day and he had a bit of bad luck."

Of his own stunning performance, Jonny added: "It's such a shock but I'm still young so I'm going to have to accept I'm going to have good races and bad races."