Alistair Brownlee Abandons Bid for the 10 km

Alistair Brownlee has announced that he will abandon his bid to race the 10, 000 m at the Commonwealth Gamess and will instead focus solely on triathlon. Following his win in London 2012 he stated his desire to race both on the track and in triathlon. Brownlee has been struggling with a chronic ankle injury, however, so will put his efforts into trying to win a third world triathlon title.

In his UK-based Metro column, Brownlee wrote: “I had intended originally to aim for the 10,000m on the track in Glasgow but that’s off for me now….I really wanted to do the qualifying race in London next weekend but the timescale just doesn’t work for me. It has made me realize that the focus, for now anyway, has to be triathlon.”

Brownlee ran a 10,000 m race last year in a time of 28mins 32secs, just 22 seconds outside England Athletics’ B standard for the Commonwealth Games. But, the injury has persisted, he had to miss his scheduled first world triathlon series race of the season in Cape Town last weekend. He is now hoping to compete in Yokohama later this month but has to make up ground on reigning world champion Javier Gomez, who has won the first two races.

He maintains confidence in his fitness and decision: “I’m under no illusions as to how difficult it will be this season with Gomez in the sort of form he’s in, having won the opening two races….He is as strong as ever, nothing’s changed there, and the challenges remain the same as last year…I see the title being between Gomez, Jonny and myself, although my brother has not performed anywhere near as well as he can so far. I hope we can both get better as the year goes on.”