The Brownlee brothers are already infamous for iconic moments of brotherly love.
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Jonny expressed how grateful he was for his brother’s willingness to throw away the title of 1st place.
But he was beaten to the title by Spaniard Mario Mola, who took the crown by just four points.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last day or two, you are sure to have heard about the awesome show of sportsmanship between two brothers Alistair and Jonny Brownlee at the World Triathlon Series.
But as the heat and strain of the race began to take its toll on Jonny, South African Henri Schoeman, who won bronze behind the Brownlees in Rio, overtook him to win. The The Brownlee Brothers will go down in history for this finish, which kept Jonny in the running to take second in the Columbia Threadneedle Rankings.
“I’ve been in that position before”, Alistair Brownlee, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, said in a televised interview after the race.
Alistair, 28, rounded the corner and, without missing a beat, swiftly slipped a supporting arm around his brother, half-carrying his unsteady figure for several hundred metres before pushing Brownlee-the-younger across the finish line for a second-place finish.
“It was a natural human reaction to my brother, but for anyone I would have done the same thing”, he said.
He also had a few choice words for his baby brother’s decision to go so hard at the start of the race.
Alistair is the only athlete to win two Olympic titles in the event.
Alistair told the BBC he initially thought “what an idiot” when he saw Jonny faltering near the finish line.
‘You have to race the conditions.
“I had the chance to win!” interrupted Alistair incredulously.
“I thought. he could have won this race so easily and he’s being tactically just ridiculous, and yeah, just serves him right really”.
The Spanish Triathlon Federation even tried to DISQUALIFY Jonny but the International Triathlon Union said it was fine for athletes to receive help from other athletes. “We want everyone to be safe after the finish line, it’s not the way I wanted it, but that’s triathlon”.
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These truly incredible scenes concluded with Alistair stopping a yard short of the line and shoving Jonny across, to ensure that he would get silver.
