Alistair Brownlee - Relentless: Secrets of the Sporting Elite

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

FIRST EDITION

Alistair Brownlee 2021

Cover layout design Sim Greenaway HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

Cover photograph Andrew Brown

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Alistair Brownlee asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008295288

Ebook Edition July 2021 ISBN: 9780008295301

Version: 2021-05-24

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To Mum and Dad

Thank you for making me endlessly curious

Want to know the best thing about being a double Olympic gold medallist?

The free kits great. The golden postbox? That was pretty cool. Never having to buy a round in your local? What Yorkshireman wouldnt enjoy that? Then theres the fan mail mostly via social media these days, though some people are still refreshingly old school; the marriage proposals (awkward); and the proposals of a rather less wholesome nature (even more so). The sponsorship deals have certainly made my day-to-day life as an athlete a lot easier. And Ive loved playing a part in giving thousands of young people a chance to experience triathlon.

But, for a sports obsessive such as myself, theres one perk that beats all others: the access gold medals give you to the sporting elite. Those surprisingly weighty discs are like a currency recognised throughout the sporting world (not that I walk around with them, you understand). The immortals past and present, those setting the pace or leading their fields all suddenly seem happy for you to chew the fat with them pretty much as equals, even when you feel far from it.

It helps that my sport, triathlon, has exploded in popularity in recent years. Seemingly every sportsman and woman I bump into these days is into their tri, or at the very least reaping the benefits of running, cycling or swimming in one form or another. It used to be that golf was every sportspersons second sport. For many years, in certain sports, it was drinking. Times have changed.

I wasnt about to squander this privileged access. Im bewildered by fans who queue up to meet their sporting heroes and want only selfies. I want more. I want to sit them down and pick their brains, to find out what it is that makes them tick and goes on doing so. Thats so much more interesting to me than a gurning photo for a few social media likes.

And what fascinates me more than anything are those who dont just win, but dominate. Those who dont shrink on the highest stage, but grow on it. Athletes and sportspeople who through their achievements expand the very parameters of what is thought possible.

Ive never shared the British appreciation for the underdog. Anyone can run hot, lightning can strike, rogue caps can get awarded. But what of those who do it week in, week out; World Cup after World Cup; grand slam after grand slam; season after season; Olympic cycle after Olympic cycle? Those who refuse to bow to despondency or triumphalism, to boredom, to distraction, to adulation or to enrichment (not a problem for triathletes, I can assure you)?

A sporting career, like life, is finite and over quicker than you might imagine. To stay at the top for 10, 15, sometimes even 20 years that takes a special calibre of person. Does it actually get easier, given the funding, the support, the seeding, the experience? For sure. But it also gets exponentially harder due to the target on your back, age tapping at the window, and the event or sport you call your own changing almost beyond recognition with the passing of years.

Ive achieved but Im no expert in what it takes to achieve. Really, Im an expert in just one thing: what works for me. And therein lies my curiosity. I want to understand what it takes in the words of Seb Coe about his old friend, the decathlete Daley Thompson to grip your event by the throat and make it your own. I love that phrase. Any sportsperson would. Choking the life out of it. A dogged, white-knuckled refusal to relinquish.

How do these people do it? What can I learn from them? And, crucially, what do such people share physiologically, behaviourally and psychologically? These are the questions Ive always longed to ask. And one day it suddenly hit home: now Im in a position to do so.

So thats what Ive done here: Englands two most inspirational cricketers of the past century; the leading try scorer in Welsh rugby; the lynchpin of Sir Alex Fergusons all-conquering Manchester United reign; one of Englands greatest-ever goal scorers; the fastest female marathoner of all time; a multiple Formula One winner who battled through more than 200 Grands Prix and went front-wing to front-wing with arguably the strongest grid ever assembled; a four-time Tour de France winner; the champion jockey who battered himself into submission to fuel his addiction to winning; the man with one of the best Ryder Cup records in golf; the worlds most astonishing endurance athlete; the dazzlingly articulate captain of a team that rewrote the book on teamwork; the most distinctive sprinter, and two of the most dominant swimmers in history; the fastest cyclist of all time; and the most naturally gifted snooker player of this or any generation.

Mavericks and monomaniacs, show-offs and introverts, team players and individual stars the diversity of characters Ive met and spoken to is striking. In fact these sporting superstars only really share one thing: they are all, in Sebs words, bona fide grippers. Some have trained with me. Others have hung out with me. All have indulged me, and Im pretty sure youre going to want to hear what they have to say.

To this list Ive added a cast of supporting characters: World Cup coaches; the worlds leading experts in human performance and exercise physiology; surviving relatives of athletes who were once unstoppable competitive forces; a multiple world champion turned motivational speaker and high-performance consultant; athletes whose roles in epic sporting moments were limited to a brief cameo; and a professor heading up groundbreaking research into the well-being and welfare of elite athletes.

All these characters provide the context, clarity and colour as I explore themes around performance that have fascinated me from a time before I could articulate them: decision-making, focus, innovation, motivation, conditioning, adaptability, superstition, belief, aura, ruthlessness, passion and that biggie, the one us athletes never like to dwell too much upon luck.