Photos: A Look at the Lives of the Brownlee Brothers

To get some insight into who the Brownlees are and how they train, Inside Triathlon magazine editor-in-chief Courtney Baird traveled to England last winter.

Alistair (left, in black) and Jonathan, who goes by Jonny, live and train together in a village outside Leeds. The countryside they train in is a striking patchwork of steep valleys and moorland, crisscrossed by stone fences and dotted with sheep and farmhouses. (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)

Both Brownlees are consummate triathletes—they are top 10 swimmers, two of the best cyclists on the ITU circuit and among the handful of the fastest runners. (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)

Contrary to the reputation that ITU athletes have for dogging it on the bike, the Brownlees like to make each race a “full-on triathlon,” as they would tell you, and hammer the swim, bike and run. (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)

For Alistair, his racing style is a personality thing—he thinks it gives him the best shot at winning. Here, he rests with his brother Jonny (left) after winning the 2010 ITU World Championship Series race in Madrid. He did it thanks to a breakaway on the bike and despite very little training over the previous winter, due to a stress fracture in his femur. (Photo by Delly Carr/triathlon.org.)

Alistair is famous on the ITU circuit for his mental toughness. On this, his friend and former teammate Olly Freeman said, “[Alistair] is the best and he knows it, and he does not tolerate people beating him. … [This] provides an amazing capacity to drive himself to places that many athletes struggle to replicate.” (Photo by Delly Carr/triathlon.org.)

Alistair and Jonny do most of their training together. If they’re not training together, it could be because one of them is in class, as Jonny is working on his bachelor’s in history from Leeds University, and Alistair is working on his master’s in finance from Leeds Met University. (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)

Alistair and Jonny are from Northern England, a place where the people are known for their grit and “get-on-with-it” attitude. In this vein, the brothers sometimes swim in a 21.4-meter pool without proper drains—which creates choppy waters—no black Ts to tell them when to flip-turn, and dangerous steps that one can easily swim into. (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)

When Alistair turned 14, he began training with a development squad in the city of Leeds that was headed by Jack Maitland, a man whose training philosophy can be summed up in four words: “Get on with it,” according to Alistair. (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)

Alistair, pictured here, says that he finds pressure “quite hard to worry about, really. … It’s so cliché, but, really, the most important thing is the pressure you put on yourself.” (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)

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The brothers do weekly sessions in the gym together. Here, they are pictured doing a circuit routine. (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)

To subscribe to Inside Triathlon magazine, click here. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)

Although Alistair and Jonny are brothers, training partners and, technically, rivals, they are, above all else, friends. “We’re good friends, not just brothers,” Jonny said. “Because we live together. And we do a lot of other things together, like go to cinema together, go out for meals together, spend lots of time together, travel to races together. So we’re really, really good friends.” (Photo by Dave Tyrrell.)