³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

In this Saturday's British Olympic Dreams, on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One from 1300 GMT, we'll examine the promise of Britain's triathlon trio and hear how injury could be the biggest obstacle between Alistair Brownlee and gold.

'We need to keep winning races,' says Jonny Brownlee (left, with Alistair). Photo: Getty Images

"I'm not much of a worrier but, if I think of things that could go wrong, injury is the big one," the elder Brownlee admitted to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport before he sustained that tendon tear.

"If I got an injury in a month's time" - which, indeed, he has - "I could still get pretty fit in the time I have. But I'd be standing on the start line [at the Olympics] feeling this is not where I want to be, and then maybe third place is my best possible finish.

"It's important not to plan too much. You can't plan for every situation, and then the situations you haven't planned for happen and you don't know how to deal with them. You have to be prepared for the worst on the day. Fitness and confidence has a lot to do with it. If you have that, you can deal with almost anything that's thrown at you."

The injury is by no means unmanageable. It could be far worse. Brownlee is expected to imminently ramp up his training once more, and the time lost may prove inconsequential.

Jonny Brownlee hopes so. He knows that, currently, a sizeable portion of the battle in each race is being won by the reputation the brothers have carved out with their phenomenal results of the past three years.

"It's important we keep on winning races," he told us. "If we're both continuously doing well, we can turn up to races and some people are beaten before we even start. They turn up, they see us, and they think, 'Aw no, they're here.' That's a massive advantage.

"I've been beaten by people like that before - [Spanish rival] is an example. I remember racing against him a few years ago: I turned up to the start and I was beaten by him already. I thought I couldn't beat him. So we need to keep that going."

Now, there is only one person Jonny Brownlee believes he cannot beat. His brother. Fascinatingly, the two employ vastly different mindsets when it comes to who, in their ideal world, finishes first on that Olympic podium this year.

"I don't think I've ever been on a start line, looked across, and thought I could beat Alistair," admitted Jonny Brownlee. "I'm not racing for second - I'm racing to win - but at the same time I know when Alistair's on top form, he's going to beat me.

"If he wins and I come second, it's a victory for both of us. If I definitely wanted to beat him then maybe I'd change a few things I do - I could be more selfish and work against him - but at the same time we would lose an advantage both of us have. We can use each other massively."

Framing the men's Olympic race as one determined by whether Britain can install both Brownlees on the start line intact and confident would be wrong. The variables beyond that are many. Alistair Brownlee may have won nine out of 11 races in 2011, a staggering figure, but he still didn't win two. It is not that simple.

However, for Jenkins the question is different. She is older than the Brownlees - 27 to Alistair's 23 and Jonny's 21 - and her path to the world number one spot has been carved out with gritty consistency and top-five finishes, not a dazzling row of gold medals.

Helen Jenkins' determination and consistency earned her the world number one spot. Photo: Getty Images

"It's been a slower progression for me," she said as 2012 dawned. "Alistair went from 12th at the Olympics in 2008 to winning every race in 2009, and he's won more than 50% of the world series races he's ever entered. That's amazing. I just haven't had that sort of explosion onto the scene.

"I've been around a bit longer, a bit more under the radar. In 2011, I won only one race on the world series but I had a few seconds."

The challenge for Jenkins, used to operating on fewer race wins than Alistair Brownlee, is to make sure one of them happens to turn up at Hyde Park in August. Happily for her, in 2011 that was the case.

"Hyde Park was incredible," she said. "I've not experienced support like that in a race before. And it replicated the Olympics, putting all that pressure on yourself for one day."

Alistair won the men's race that weekend, with Jonny third, ensuring all three earned Olympic qualification. The sheer level of British support stunned them. We journalists can write until we are blue in the face that these triathlons medals are as good as won but, if things do go awry on the day, it might be the crowd that saves them.

"I remember saying in the press conference before the race that the home crowd makes no difference," recalled Alistair. "Then tens of thousands of people turned up. At the swim, as far as you could see down the Serpentine there were people four abreast walking up to watch the race. The cheers were amazing. I thought, 'Wow, maybe there is something in this home-crowd malarkey.' That sticks with me.

"It was a big ask to get two of us in the top three at that race, and when we actually did it, it was like, 'Wow'. But all the hype is external to us. We've seen what's possible, we know what we can do. Hopefully we can go out and execute."