Brownlee sets sight on first T100 podium of the year in Vegas

By Paul Eddison, Sportsbeat

Alistair Brownlee has spent most of his career conquering every challenge presented to him and now the time has come for the double Olympic champion to master the T100 Triathlon World Tour.

An Olympic gold medallist in London and Rio, Brownlee has since turned his hand to the longer formats of triathlon, and will this weekend compete in the T100 in Las Vegas, a 100km race that is broken down into a 2km swim, an 80km bike ride and finally an 18km run.

Brownlee achieved his best result of the season in Ibiza at the end of September, finishing fourth, but is now desperate to end his podium drought in Vegas.

He said: “I feel good, I was a bit ill post-Ibiza but I’ve hopefully recovered from that. I’ve had a good week and I’m looking forward to the race.

"After having a mixed year of ups and downs, it’s good to put together a race that I’m proud of and after a few more weeks of training, I hope it’s a stepping stone towards another good one.

“It would be nice to be a bit better than Ibiza and make it onto the podium. It would mean a lot. I’ve done maybe five of these races so far this year and haven’t managed it yet, so it would be good.”

Brownlee headed out in plenty of time to get acclimatised to the desert conditions in Nevada – albeit, the weather on race day is expected to be a little cooler than the current blistering temperatures.

But while Brownlee has been to Vegas before, the location of the race in Lake Las Vegas – some 20 miles to the east – is new ground for him.

He added: “I’ve been enjoying being in Las Vegas for about a week now. It’s really nice on the edge of the city, you can get out and cycle and run in the desert which is much better than I was expecting.

“It’s a beautiful location and at the moment the weather is scorching hot and it has been all week. But if the forecast is right, it will be a lot cooler by the weekend so it will be an amazing change in weather.

“I’ve been to Las Vegas a few times over the years, but I’ve never been to this part. It’s really good to be here.”

Brownlee currently sits ninth in the overall T100 season standings, with an athlete’s best three results combined to form their series total.

That tally will then be added to the results from the Grand Final in Dubai next month, where a world champion will be crowned.

And with 20 of the best long-distance triathletes in the world competing across the series, Brownlee believes the T100 is transforming the sport, both on the course and off it.

He added: “The tour has been amazing. It’s a great step in the right direction for long-distance triathlon. It’s good on lots of levels, having the best long-distance athletes race each other consistently, it’s great for fans to watch.

"It’s exciting and from the other side you know how well the tour has looked after the athletes, they are definitely setting a new standard of looking after professional triathletes.

“The long-distance is remarkable in how unpredictable it is. That is down to lots of different things, I think that is one of the exciting things about it.”