Alistair Brownlee on his inspiring new book Relentless: Secrets of the Sporting Elite

Virgin Radio

12 Jul 2021, 09:56

The British triathlete and double Olympic gold medalist joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about his new book interviewing top sportsmen and women across the nation, his recent injury and going to Tokyo to be on the other side of the track.

He told Chris: “I was hoping to go to The Olympics for the fourth time and I always knew it was a bit of a risk being a bit older and a bit injury prone, and I was trying to qualify earlier this year.

"I ended up getting a really bad injury, not qualifying for Tokyo, and having an operation on my ankle to sort it out about a month ago so I've been recovering from that and I hope to be racing again soon but I'm only going to focus on the long distance form of triathlon now and not Olympic distance.

"I am actually going to Tokyo to do some campaigning to try and be voted onto The Olympic Committee as part of the Athletes' Commission so I get to hopefully watch some events and do a bit of work, so I'm looking forward to that."

He said about The Olympics: "I think it’s brilliant they're going ahead. I think any Olympics is better than no Olympics. It's fantastic it's happening but yeah, I feel like I've moved on from my short distance triathlon career and I am really looking forward to just standing on the side of the course and spectating and watching the race.

"I feel like I've had a good innings at racing at The Olympic Games, I'm very proud of going to three of them and it’ll be fantastic to watch this one."

On his new book, he said: “It was four years in the making and it's me talking to high-performing athletes and people across a range of sports from Ronnie O'Sullivan the snooker player to AP McCoy the jockey to Ian Botham cricket legend to Paula Radcliffe.

“They're all informal conversations about what makes them tick, how they motivate themselves, how they get performances out of themselves time and time again over long periods.

"I've got a newfound respect for people who are professional interviewers. I really enjoyed trying to sit down and crystallise those thoughts and put them in the form of a book. 

“There are common threads that run through the book. A really obvious one is almost everyone, without fail, didn't like the 'genius' type title and Ronnie talks about it as they kind of see that as undermining the work that they put in.

"Another really nice common thread was how people motivate themselves and motivation isn't the binary thing where someone is super motivated or not. I think these top performers who do it over the years or even decades, in McCoy's case, they just find different sources of motivation. That's what they're really good at; finding sources of motivation and acting on those...

“I talked to the daughter of probably the most impressive cyclist you've ever heard of. She was called Beryl Burton, a real pioneer of women's sport in the 60s and 70s, and the stories of Beryl’s selfishness to her family and her daughter is just incredible.

"Like not letting the daughter get in the car to go and race, not shaking her hand when her own daughter beat her. It wasn’t out of any kind of bitterness, that’s how she was. She was incredibly focused, driven and single minded - so things like that you don't like thinking about as an athlete, but I can definitely associate with."  

Relentless: Secrets of the Sporting Elite is out now.