Double Olympic champ Alistair Brownlee retires from triathlon

FILE -Britain’s Alistair Brownlee, poses for the media with his gold medal for winning the men’s ITU World Championship Series Triathlon race in London, Aug., 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

LONDON (AP) — Double Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee announced his retirement from triathlon at the age of 36 on Thursday.

Brownlee won gold medals in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016, with his younger brother, Jonny, making the podium on both occasions. The siblings’ exploits helped to push triathlon into the mainstream in Britain, with current Olympic champion Alex Yee of Britain crediting them as inspirations.

Alistair Brownlee was also world champion in 2009 and 2011, and a four-time European champion.

He wrote on X it was “time to close this chapter.”

“This marks my transition from professional triathlon, a moment approached with both dread and excitement in equal measure,” he wrote.

Brownlee said he was excited to try new challenges and had some “projects I’m eager to tackle.”

But he knew his time as an elite triathlete was over.

“It has got more difficult for me,” he said in an interview published on the website of Britain’s Olympic team. “I can’t do anywhere near the training that I used to be able to do. So I also found it hard at times being on the start line, knowing that I’m not prepared to the level that I’d like to be.

“And I’m older, I’m 36. I’ve done it for a long time and there’s a lot of other things I want to do with my life.”

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

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