The Brownlee brothers are kings of the triathlon in Rio.
Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee took gold and silver respectively in the men’s triathlon on Thursday.
Both brothers were a bit behind coming out of the swim portion, but their cycling skills made up for it — with one or the other leading the pack throughout most of the second portion of the race.
They ran close together during the final portion, with Alistair passing his little brother on the third lap of the run and holding the lead until the end of the race. Jonathan finished a mere six seconds behind his brother — Alistair got a time of 1:45:01 and Jonathan 1:45:07.
This is Alistair Brownlee’s second Olympic gold in triathlon, and Jonathan Brownlee’s first silver — he won bronze in London.
South Africa’s Henri Schoeman took bronze in Rio, winning his country’s first medal in the sport since it was introduced in 2000.
The gold and silver earned by the Brownlees pushes Great Britain’s medal total to 55: 21 gold, 21 silver and 13 bronze. With still several days of competition to go, the country is already nearing its 65 medal total from London in 2012.
Some observers attribute this medal haul in part to the sheer amount of money invested in funding sports. UK Sport pledged roughly 274 million British pounds ($461 million Canadian) between 2013 and 2017, focusing on sports where British athletes have seen particular success recently, such as cycling.
Canada has a similar strategy for its Own the Podium program, though the amount of funding is much less: $116 million for the Rio quadrennial. And the British team isn’t that much larger than the Canadian: 366 athletes compared to Canada’s 314.
With files from Reuters
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