Olympics: Brownlee brothers pride of Yorkshire

Gold medalist Alistair Brownlee (right) hugs his brother, Jonathan (left), who won bronze. Photo / Mark Mitchell

With a Union Flag draped across his shoulders, Alistair Brownlee slowed to walking pace as he crossed the triathlon finishing line in Hyde Park.

Yet if the elder brother's victory elicited deafening roars of delight from crowds in London and his native Leeds, the arrival half a minute later of Jonathan Brownlee to snatch bronze, despite a 15-second penalty for a minor infringement of the rules, was greeted with equal if not greater fervour.

"To get two of us - two brothers - two British brothers on the podium, you couldn't ask for any more," said Alistair, 24, as Jonathan, two years his junior, was led away in a wheelchair to the resuscitation area after collapsing at the race's climax.

The Brownlees, the hugely popular sons of two doctors from Bramhope in Leeds, look set to become Britain's most famous sporting siblings since Bobby and Jack Charlton and further boost the popularity of one of the world's fastest growing pursuits.

Hundreds of thousands of fans had taken to the streets of London to cheer them on while hundreds more gathered around big screens and crammed into the brothers' local pub in Yorkshire to watch the drama unfold.

Yet those with most at stake were the Brownlees' parents who, riven with nerves and the anxiety that accompanies a sport where competitors routinely drive themselves to the point of exhaustion, had arrived at the Olympic venue four-and-a-half hours before the race began.

Once satisfied their youngest son was all right, the relieved couple described witnessing their sons' success as "unreal" - despite their 40-hour-a-week training schedule and lifelong determination to achieve this moment. "You don't think that those boys running through that line and winning those medals are your sons," said Cath Brownlee. Her husband, Keith, a cystic fibrosis specialist, said he felt "pride, elation, relief - it's just wonderful".

The Brownlees' success brings the number of gold medals won by Yorkshire athletes to five - level with ninth-placed Germany and a quarter of the host nation's haul.

- Independent