Triathlon legend Jonny Brownlee says he is ready to ‘open the book’ on his incredible career after admitting that he and brother Alistair had pretty much shut out the world in their quest for Olympic and world glory.
The 36-year-old remains determined to compete and achieve further success in a sport he has graced for more than two decades, and in a break from his usual routine, he is now willing to share the highs and lows of what he suggests will be the final few years of his athletic journey.
While double gold medallist Alistair has now retired from professional competition, Jonny remains an active member of the triathlon scene and – following a short break when son Freddie was born – is looking to once again challenge for podium places.
Didn’t want to give away any secrets
Revealing the launch of his new YouTube vlog, which is embedded in this story below, the three-time Olympic medallist says he used to hate the idea of revealing trade secrets on social media; however, the time was right to ‘show more of the journey of what athletes actually go through’.
“I’m hoping to document the next few years of my journey and do lots of different things,” he says. “To show more about myself and my challenges coming up. You know, we were very much a closed book for a lot of our careers, and now is a time to be more of an open book and show more of the journey of what athletes actually go through.
“There are different stages in your career. And when we were at our pinnacle and racing at the top of the world, there were a few reasons why we didn’t really want to show too much.
“Firstly, I didn’t have the time because I spent the whole time training, and if I wasn’t training, I was recovering to be able to cope with the amount of training that I wanted to do, and secondly, I guess we always thought that we were ahead of the game, so I didn’t want to give any of our secrets away.
“But now I’m definitely not ahead of the game anymore, and I’m at a stage where I’m a bit more relaxed and kind of want to show a bit more about my journey, and also maybe I’m a bit more relatable as well in the fact that I have a lot more real-life restrictions than a lot of professional athletes now have.”
Looking to compete at Supertri Pro Series Final
The interview was filmed in the build-up to him racing at Supertri Toronto and shows him battling to get race-fit so that he can challenge both in Canada and also at the Supertri Pro Series Final in Jersey on September 6.
His most notable effort in 2026 up to this point had been his Weekend Warrior record-breaking ten sprint-distance races at Supertri Blenheim Palace – a feat which he admits took him a while to recover from.
He would go on to finish a creditable fifth in Toronto, but the video shows how he was ‘panic training’ to get himself up to the standard he wanted, and needed, to be. It was a process that he did not enjoy.
“I obviously did Blenheim and got the world record there. But that actually took a long time to recover from. It was a real tough couple of days,” he said. “My body suffered after that. Getting older meant it was a lot harder to recover. So it took me a lot longer to get back into the really hard training.
“The last couple of weeks I’ve been panic training for Toronto, so I’ve tried to get as many run sessions in as possible. I’ve stayed pretty aerobically fit. I love training. I love exercising. I love getting out on my bike. I love running… swimming, maybe not quite as much.
Every run session I do, I absolutely hate it
“So I’m really fit. It’s just really fast running that I need to work on. Once Freddie came along, I didn’t do any run sessions from October to about three weeks ago. Not a single one. If I want to be reasonably competitive in Jersey and Toronto, I have to be able to run faster.
“It’s been quite interesting. Not going from any fast running to doing a little bit, and that’s actually come back quite nicely. It’s just the time in between the sessions that really hurts me now. I’ve gone from really enjoying every run that I was doing because I wasn’t doing that really hard stuff to now throwing some run sessions in, and every run session that I do, I just absolutely hate.”
Indeed, such was the gap between his condition and where he wanted to be that Brownlee accepted that he almost needed to learn how to race again. And no matter what happens, he will now also train and compete with hugely different priorities in his life.
“I start the first five or ten minutes limping. I feel like my brother now; Alistair definitely used to have to do that,” he joked. “But I’ve got to suffer this next kind of couple of weeks to get over that, and then hopefully it comes easy again.
Learning how to race again
“Hopefully I’ve had a solid race in Toronto. I’ve kind of learnt how to race again; you know, got my transition skills back up again. Got back to some fast running, and then I can go to Jersey and hopefully just be on that start line knowing that I’ve done what I can in the realm of what I’m able to do to be in the best shape I possibly can be.
“It’s amazing how your priorities change. I have been selfish – maybe not as selfish as some athletes – but I have been at times where training has been the most important thing in my life for so much of my life.
“The next session, the next recovery for that training session or whatever. And now, to have Freddie come along and just realise if he needs me because he’s ill or something, and it means I miss a bike ride or a run – which would have absolutely driven me crazy before – I realise it’s not actually that important.”
