European Championships 2018: Alistair Brownlee misses out on triathlon medal
- Published
- comments
Le Corre wins gold, Brownlee fourth
Great Britain's Alistair Brownlee missed out on a triathlon medal at the European Championships in the Strathclyde Country Park in Scotland.
The 30-year-old finished fourth with France's Pierre Le Corre taking gold, Spain's Fernando Alarza the silver and Belgium's Marten van Riel the bronze.
"I had a terrible six months," said Brownlee, who missed June's World Triathlon Series in Leeds.
"I've not done enough sessions and knew I was going to struggle on the run."
The two-time Olympic gold medallist, who won European gold medals in 2010, 2011 and 2014, added: "The swim was really hard, I got really beaten up at the start but that's all part of it.
"On the bike I got a group working but I couldn't really do anything on the run.
"I've had a handful of run sessions so I can be quite pleased and I'm just happy to be racing.
"I didn't know what to expect, I've been training hard so I knew I was going to be tired going into it."
The event consisted of a 1500m swim, 40km cycle and 10km run and Britain's Barclay Izzard came ninth, while Marc Austin was 35th, after a heavy fall.
Austin, 24, who won a bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games in April, showed great character to finish at his home event after a bad crash during the cycling.
Brownlee was fourth at the first transition phase, was in the lead at parts of the bike stage and was fourth at the second transition.
However, Le Corre and Van Riel broke clear of Brownlee on the second lap of the run, before Alarza also overtook Brownlee and then caught Van Riel.
Brownlee's time was one hour 48 minutes 12 seconds as he finished 55 seconds behind Le Corre.
- Published8 August 2018
