The sport of triathlon had a special honour on Tuesday, when Team England announced its first set of athletes for the home Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this summer.

The four named athletes – which included three Olympic gold medal winners from the fantastic Mixed Relay Triathlon event in Tokyo last summer – are Georgia Taylor-Brown, Sophie Coldwell, Alex Yee and Jonathan Brownlee.

As Olympic silver medallists from the individual races in Tokyo, Georgia and Alex earned automatic selection for Birmingham, while as we featured extensively recently, Sophie Coldwell’s second WTCS podium of the 2021 season in Abu Dhabi also secured her spot directly.

Fifth place for Brownlee in the individual race in Tokyo, followed by his brilliant performance in the Relay, made his selection for a third Commonwealth Games a seemingly straightforward one for the selectors too.

Just as it was at Glasgow 2014 – a race won by Team England’s Jodie Stimpson – triathlon will once again be the first medal event on the programme at Birmingham 2022, where the triathlon will be based at Sutton Park.

Further selections to follow

Selection for the remaining triathletes and PTVI paratriathletes to compete in the Commonwealth Games for Team England will be announced in the build up to the Games.

Speaking on the selections, Triathlon Team Leader, Jonathon Riall said:

“It is with a huge amount of pride and excitement that we get to announce such a strong team of athletes in the first of what will be three separate selection meetings before the games.

“To be able to announce four athletes is testament to the incredibly high standard achieved by the English athletes and therefore huge credit needs to go to the British coaches within our centres who have supported these athletes to date.

“I want to say a massive congratulations to Alex, Jonny, Georgia and Sophie, who have all shown the potential to compete at the highest level in Birmingham next year.”

Team England’s Chef de Mission, Mark England OBE, welcomed the athletes to the team: 

“It’s brilliant to announce Team England’s first four athletes for Birmingham 2022 all of whom are world leading triathletes, and really exciting to be medal competitive from day one. A home Games is a truly special event to be involved in and I’d like to congratulate the athletes on their selection.”