Brownlee brothers take triathlon gold and silver

 

Alistair Brownlee has won gold for Team GB in the Rio triathlon, narrowly beating his brother Jonathan who claimed the silver medal.

It was a historic victory for Alistair as he becomes the first man to defend an Olympic triathlon title, adding further gloss to these successful games for the British team.

There was very little to separate the duo in the swim, cycle and majority of the run but Alistair managed to create a gap in the latter stages to cross the line six seconds ahead of his younger brother.

While Alistair will no doubt take the headlines for defending his title, Jonathan will get a large amount of credit for upgrading his bronze medal from the London 2012 Olympics.

Henri Schoeman took the bronze medal on this occasion to make history himself in becoming the first South African to win an Olympic triathlon medal.

There was no stopping the Brownlee brothers though as it was another impressive performance from the Yorkshire pair.

This now takes Team GB’s medal tally up to 54 following Alistair and Jonathan’s triumph.

Alistair is now the 13^th athlete to successfully retain their Olympic title from London amongst the 19 attempting to achieve this feat.

It is unknown whether this will be the last time the Brownlee brothers compete against each other at the Olympics as Alistair will be 32 and Jonathan will be 30 come the Tokyo 2020 games.

Triathlon requires a large amount of physical and mental strain and we could even see Alistair in particular, switch to a different event such as long distance running.