Alex Yee

Alex Yee could have pursued a career as an international track runner but instead has let his love for triathlon win the day – and with two Olympic medals and a Super League Triathlon Championship Series title to his name already it’s just as well. Born in Lewisham, London, Alex has always had a huge natural talent for running right from his school days at Kingsdale Foundation School in Dulwich. However, at that stage, he was also keen on many other sports, including cricket and badminton. His running feats marked him out as a star of the future. As a junior, he was running quicker 5km races than Mo Farah was at the same age and in 2018 – having recovered from a terrible bike crash – was crowned senior British 10,000m champion with a time of 27:51:94 and represented his country at the European Championships where he finished 14th.

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Encouraged by his father Ron to pursue his love of swim-bike-run, Yee developed an incredible all-around game that leaves him on the very edge of taking over from the Brownlee brothers as Britain’s top male short course triathlete. While biking has come naturally to Alex, swimming has been the steeper learning curve and taken more work, but the hard yards in the pool have paid off with increasingly impressive results.

As a junior, and alongside his running, Alex was already securing medals with a silver at the Junior European Cup in Holten in 2015 and golds at the Duathlon World Championships in 2016 and 2017. His junior career was soaring with a fifth place in the 2016 ITU Grand Final in Cozumel before a horror bike crash at the ITU World Cup event in Cagliari in 2017 threatened to derail his promising career.

However, Alex fought back hard. He moved to Leeds to study Sport and Exercise Science at Leeds Beckett University and join the British Triathlon training squad, including the Brownlee brothers. By 2018 he was well and truly back in the game at elite senior level, taking bronze and the World Cup event in Weihai in China before topping the podium in Cape Town.

Alex’s WTS debut in Abu Dhabi in 2019 saw him take a spectacular silver and gold at the Mixed Relay in Nottingham as part of the Great Britain team. In 2021 he proved his versatility at the SLT Arena Games by finishing third in London and second in Rotterdam.

His participation a the Tokyo Olympics was in doubt until just a couple of months before when he produced a stunning victory at WTS Leeds and was handed selection. The faith in him was entirely justified as Alex secured a silver medal in the individual event and gold as part of Great Britain’s Mixed Relay team alongside Georgia Taylor-Brown, Jess Learmonth and Jonny Brownlee.

He then followed that up with the remarkable feat of winning the 2021 Super League Triathlon Championship Series.

It started with a disappointing fifth place in his home race in London, but he progressed as the Series went on. He climbed onto the podium for third in Munich before back-to-back wins in Jersey and Malibu to take the crown. The first of those saw a dramatic sprint finish with Jonathan Brownlee, before he repeated the feat up against Marten Van Riel in California.

He produced a stunning double at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham to win gold in both the individual and mixed relay events.

Alex moved his training base and home to Loughborough during lockdown where he lives with his girlfriend, fellow Great Britain triathlete Olivia Mathias.