While having this stress fracture 12 months from now would have been much more problematic, I am sure that Olympic bronze medalist Jonny Brownlee will be bummed to be back home having been identified with a femoral stress fracture (of his thigh bone). Jonny had to return from high altitude training in St Moritz where he and brother Alistair were in their mid-summer big block of hard work. Jonny has been the more duarable of the two brothers over their caeers and has not seen much down-time due to injuries or sickness. The timing is not optimal as the RIO TEST event in August had the ability to help Jonny be pre-selected for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. He will now likely have to show fitness in 2016 and not have the luxury of being pre-selected in 2015.
Slowtwich readers may not really know Jonny that well, but he is an incredible athlete, competitor and real gentleman. I have interviewed him 20 or 30 times and he is always on time, always answers the question and is a true pro when it comes to doing media and meeting sponsorship, event commitments. While the Javi-Alistair duo have gotten a bit more visiblity and press over the years, Jonny was never far from the action and due to his durability has been in some of the biggest head to heads with Javi Gomez over the years.
If your going to train hard, really hard, like the Brownlee brothers do, its impossible to 100% prevent these kinds of injuries. You can't run 14 min flat off the bike and sub 30min for 10k off the bike, by not really "reaching" in training sessions. Both the brothers are surrounded with great coaches, training partners and medical support, so I highly doubt that there was much that could have been done to prevent this problem from occuring. As I said, if you want to run 32min off the bike, you can likely do that without over-stressing yourself. But if your trying to do the kind of training it takes to win on the ITU Circuit of sub 30min 10k runs off the bike, then the high quality training required is going to put on you the THIN LINE for injuries.
This next 11 months until June 2016, is going to be very high quality racing as athletes from all over the world, pull out their A+ game to just try to make their country's Olympic Teams. Every four years we see a handful of athletes (big names) have some injury set-backs as they are trying to do the highest quality speed work required to be a threat on the circuit. If you really watch any sport at the highest levels (regardless of the sport) you do see injuries playing a big role. Some athletes are just a little bit more durable then others.
Having watched his own brother have to make a remarkable comeback for the 2012 Olympic team (while out with achilles tendon), I know that Jonny has the best medical minds around him to help steer him back to the sport at the soonest (but most reasonable) time possible. RIght now its sounds like his team is looking at Chicago in Sept as the earliest date, as the British Triathlon Association had 2 key races for their athletes in 2015 (RIO TEST EVENT in AUGUST and Chicago WTS Grand Final in Sept). WIth Rio too early, its clear that Jonny is going to have to try to pick up a top 3 podium in Chicago to get himself highly considered for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games). To get 100% pre-selected, I believe they had to have a podium in Rio Test Race and a poium in Chicago WTS (something that Jonny now cannot do and will have to wait till 2016 to officially be named to the RIO OLYMPIC TEAM). The sport needs warriors like Jonny Brownlee, so I hope he has a fast and full recovery by Chicago.
Slowtwich readers may not really know Jonny that well, but he is an incredible athlete, competitor and real gentleman. I have interviewed him 20 or 30 times and he is always on time, always answers the question and is a true pro when it comes to doing media and meeting sponsorship, event commitments. While the Javi-Alistair duo have gotten a bit more visiblity and press over the years, Jonny was never far from the action and due to his durability has been in some of the biggest head to heads with Javi Gomez over the years.
If your going to train hard, really hard, like the Brownlee brothers do, its impossible to 100% prevent these kinds of injuries. You can't run 14 min flat off the bike and sub 30min for 10k off the bike, by not really "reaching" in training sessions. Both the brothers are surrounded with great coaches, training partners and medical support, so I highly doubt that there was much that could have been done to prevent this problem from occuring. As I said, if you want to run 32min off the bike, you can likely do that without over-stressing yourself. But if your trying to do the kind of training it takes to win on the ITU Circuit of sub 30min 10k runs off the bike, then the high quality training required is going to put on you the THIN LINE for injuries.
This next 11 months until June 2016, is going to be very high quality racing as athletes from all over the world, pull out their A+ game to just try to make their country's Olympic Teams. Every four years we see a handful of athletes (big names) have some injury set-backs as they are trying to do the highest quality speed work required to be a threat on the circuit. If you really watch any sport at the highest levels (regardless of the sport) you do see injuries playing a big role. Some athletes are just a little bit more durable then others.
Having watched his own brother have to make a remarkable comeback for the 2012 Olympic team (while out with achilles tendon), I know that Jonny has the best medical minds around him to help steer him back to the sport at the soonest (but most reasonable) time possible. RIght now its sounds like his team is looking at Chicago in Sept as the earliest date, as the British Triathlon Association had 2 key races for their athletes in 2015 (RIO TEST EVENT in AUGUST and Chicago WTS Grand Final in Sept). WIth Rio too early, its clear that Jonny is going to have to try to pick up a top 3 podium in Chicago to get himself highly considered for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games). To get 100% pre-selected, I believe they had to have a podium in Rio Test Race and a poium in Chicago WTS (something that Jonny now cannot do and will have to wait till 2016 to officially be named to the RIO OLYMPIC TEAM). The sport needs warriors like Jonny Brownlee, so I hope he has a fast and full recovery by Chicago.