Olympic bronze medallist Jonathan Brownlee completed a British double at the ITU World Triathlon Madrid and also maintained an impressive family record at the Spanish event.
A day after Non Stanford’s victory in the women’s race, the 23-year-old secured an emphatic second successive victory in Madrid and fifth in a row for the Brownlee’s.
Olympic champion Alistair won in Madrid every year between 2009 and 2011 with Jonathan swimming well to exit the water with a small but strong group of cyclists.
Jonathan and the group of Javier Gomez, Ivan Vasiliev, Alessandro Fabian and Aaron Royle formed a lead of nearly two minutes by the end of the 40km bike section.
The defending world champion was then aggressive at the start of the run, opening a lead over Gomez, before coming home in a winning time of 1:50:42hours.
And Jonathan, who also won in Yokohama last time out, said: “It’s a good triathlon course this one, as I keep saying it’s a pure triathlon course.
“Our group was incredible there, all the other riders did turns throughout the race and it was a fair race I think, so I enjoyed it but it was tough, it’s always tough.”
And British Triathlon performance director Brendan Purcell admits he is looking ahead to the rest of the season with much anticipation.
“It’s been a great weekend having won both the men’s and women’s races, so it’s definitely looking good,” said Purcell.
“We have some good groups of athletes working together and now we can build on that to help the next group come through.
“It’s really positive that we have a group of women coming through now and we can continue to work with the talented men to ensure that they have the right environment in which to be successful.
“There’s a general feeling of anticipation about Kitzbuhel [the next World Triathlon leg]. Because of the challenging course there is a different context to the race and genuine excitement. But first we have the European Championships coming up in two weeks.”
© Sportsbeat 2013