Jonny Brownlee Nervous But Ready For Last Push For Super League Triathlon Championship Series

Championship 2021

Malibu 25 Sep 2021

Jonathan Brownlee may be one of the most decorated athletes in triathlon history but admits he is feeling nervous as he tries to win his first Super League Championship Series title.

Brownlee heads into the Series finale in Malibu with a one point lead at the top of the overall leaderboard.

He is yet to win an event in the Series, but his consistency has put him in pole position as those around him have endured triumph and despair.

Brownlee confessed that he never expected to get to Malibu with such a great chance to win, and is ready to embrace the nerves after dealing with them in Jersey.

He said: “You want to be in that position (top of the leaderboard) and you’d rather be in that position than not but it doesn’t make that much difference because my understanding is that I basically have to beat Alex and Hayden to take the title so it’s a one-off race between us three and Vince is not that far behind.

“I didn’t expect to be in this position at all because I’ve done it off consistency rather than winning any of them.

“I will be nervous this weekend. I was as nervous in Jersey as I have been for a very long time.

“Two years previously I was eliminated at the start and I felt like I had let people down and I didn’t enjoy that. You question yourself as an athlete and to be back there on the same course with my fitness completely different, my health completely different. I didn’t want to do that again and that made me nervous.

“There’s a lot to get over the travel right now and rest but I will definitely be nervous.”

There’s a big switch in race dynamics again this weekend with the Eliminator format coming into play and a decision on whether to go hard for Short Chutes in the first stage or conserve energy, survive and then go hard for a final 15 minutes when everything is on the line.

“It’s three races so the tactics are to get through the first two as easy as possible without any mistakes, making things hard for yourself without either getting eliminated or wasting energy,” said Brownlee.

“That’s hard though because people are racing to the max and fighting for their own positions.

When you get through those first two you worry about that last race when you get there.”