British double Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee has this morning announced his retirement from professional triathlon, following his podium finish at the Dubai T100 Triathlon World Championship Final on Sunday.
Speaking exclusively to the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) in Dubai before he flew home to Yorkshire, the 36-year-old revealed that “winning two Olympic gold medals… especially that race in London” were the undoubted highlights of an 18-year career.
PTO CEO Sam Renouf said “For me, Alistair must rank as one of the world’s very best, if not the best, professional triathlete.
“Not only for his phenomenal successes in the sport but also how he changed the sport – through the way he raced, the way he trained and the way he has dedicated his life to triathlon.
“He has also been an influential figure in the early days of the Professional Triathletes Organisation as an Athlete Board Member and I was extremely honoured that we were able to have him competing across all seven races of our inaugural T100 Triathlon World Tour with a podium placing in Dubai as his final professional event.”
Brownlee leaves the sport with a list of accomplishments. Outside of those two Olympic Gold medals in 2012 and 2016, he won Commonwealth Gold in 2014 and is also a four-time World Triathlon Champion – including winning junior, under 23 and two senior titles.
He has also notched up five European Championship titles – once as a junior. In World Triathlon racing, the Yorkshireman earned 38 wins and 54 podiums from his 90 starts. He also found success in long-course, taking second at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships in 2018 and 2019, and now bows out after a third place at the first-ever T100 Triathlon World Championship Final.
Speaking about the inaugural year of the T100 Triathlon World Tour, Alistair Brownlee said “I’m a big believer in Project T100. It’s fantastic and I’m honoured that I’ve been part of this first year.
“If it happened next year or the year after, I probably wouldn’t have been part of it. If it happened five years before, I would have been part of five years of it. So, yeah, I think I can just say it’s great that I have the opportunity to see how it works, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes over the next five years.”
Speaking about his future plans, Brownlee added “So I’ve got all kinds of things and projects that I’m really looking forward, excited to do and stay active, stay involved in sport.
“I’ve got a list of events that I wanted to do, whether that’s more gravel racing, ultrarunning, endurance bike packing races, mountain bike stuff, anything that’s kind of challenging. Maybe some of the extreme triathlons, more challenge and completion things.
“I really enjoy the work I do with the IOC and trying to guide sports into a new area and I think that’s an important thing to do.
“More with the charity. And then, yeah, a bunch of bits of business interests. We’ve got a couple of companies hopefully that are going to be launching over the next few months and various bits of work.”
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