Golden return for Brownlee

Triathlon world champion and Leeds Met student Alistair Brownlee has won the World Championship Series event in Spain in his first race back from injury.

Alistair, who is studying for an MSc in Finance, missed the season's first two races after a stress fracture picked up during training, but produced a stunning performance to pick up gold in the race in Madrid.

Alistair, who is coached by Carnegie Director of Triathlon Jack Maitland and retired Carnegie Director of Sport Malcolm Brown, hadn't raced a triathlon since winning the world title last September, yet he battled through the heat in the Spanish capital to win in a time of 1 hour 52 minutes and 41 seconds ahead of Australian Courtney Atkinson.

Speaking after the race the 22 year old was delighted by his performance: "That win overshadows anything I did last year, it's the proudest victory that I've ever had because I had to fight so hard for it."

"I definitely wasn't expecting to win, I was running for second place and with 500m to go I gave it everything I had. I looked back and couldn't believe the gap that I had opened up. I had to give it everything to win."
 
Carnegie Director of Triathlon Jack Maitland added: "This was a great result as normally it takes a couple of early season races to get sharp enough to win at this level. Alistair proved that he has the fitness, ability and determination to comeback from a disrupted period of training and be a winner."
 
Alistair will now prepare for the World Series race in London's Hyde Park and the Series final in Budapest.  He is also keen to add the European Championship crown to his world title when he races in Ireland in July.