Jonathan Brownlee's season might only be two races in, but the reigning ITU World Champion showed his title defence was back on track with another stunning performance in Madrid on Sunday. After making a brilliant return from an ankle injury in Yokohama l...    [More]

Jonathan Brownlee's season might only be two races in, but the reigning ITU World Champion showed his title defence was back on track with another stunning performance in Madrid on Sunday.

After making a brilliant return from an ankle injury in Yokohama last month, Brownlee was again in the lead from almost start to finish to win his second consecutive race in the 2013 ITU World Triathlon Series season. It was also his second consecutive win in Madrid as well as keeps the race title in the Brownlee family. Since the series started in 2009 only Jonathan and brother Alistair Brownlee have topped the podium in the Casa de Campo park.

On Sunday, Brownlee was in the lead group out of the water before driving the pace in a five-man breakaway for the 40km bike leg. They left T2 with over a minute and a half on the rest of the field and within the first few hundred metres Brownlee strode to the front and made it clear he was the one to beat. He had put 16 seconds on Spain's Javier Gomez on the first lap alone, before going on to claim his sixth ITU World Triathlon Series win by 50 seconds in a time of 1 hour 50 minutes and 42 seconds.

"It's a good triathlon course this one, as I keep saying it's a pure triathlon course," Brownlee said. "Our group was incredible there, all the other riders did turns throughout the race and it was a fair race I think, so I enjoyed it but it was tough, it's always tough."

The day started under blue skies and there were no surprises at Casa de Campo on the non-wetsuit swim. The always strong Ivan Vasiliev (RUS), who finished just outside of the podium in Madrid last year on his way to securing an Olympic spot, was determined to put himself in a top position before heading for the tough bike course. He did just that, followed by his teammate Igor Polyanskiy, younger brother Denis Vasiliev (RUS), Richard Varga (SVK), Gomez (ESP) and Brownlee (GBR).

Visit www.triathlon.org for more information.

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