Leeds-based Jonny has a complete set of Olympic medals, taking bronze at London 2012, silver at Rio 2016 and gold at Tokyo 2020. He has also won medals at Commonwealth Games and became World Champion in 2012.
The younger of the two Brownlee brothers, Jonny has taken home multiple medals at European and World Championships as well as Commonwealth and Olympic Games. His most recent coming as he took silver at the 2023 European Championships in Madrid.
Jonny’s 2022 season was impacted by injury following a crash at AJ Bell 2022 World Triathlon Championship Series Leeds, an injury that would rule him out of a home Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. He would return to action with a 16th-place finish at World Triathlon Cup Bergen before silver at World Triathlon Championship Series Cagliari. He ended his year with 26th at the season ending event in Abu Dhabi.
A proud Yorkshireman, Jonny was born in Dewsbury and remained in the county during his time as a student. Attending Bradford Grammar School before moving on to complete a degree in History at Leeds University in the summer of 2012, where he achieved a 2:1. Jonny has also been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law by the University of Leeds (2013) and was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to triathlon.
In 2010, Jonny went from being a talented junior to a senior ITU World Sprint Champion and a podium finisher in the ITU World Series. He was also an emphatic winner of the U23 world title in Budapest in September 2010.
The following year Jonny earned two gold medals at the Lausanne World Championships in both the Mixed Relay and the Elite Sprint race. He then won the ITU world title in Auckland in 2012 after winning World Series rounds in San Diego, Madrid and Stockholm. He has also finished second in 2011, 2013 and 2016, and third in 2014.
Jonny found Commonwealth success at Glasgow in 2014 alongside his brother as he crossed the line eleven seconds later to claim a silver medal. The medals didn’t stop there for Jonathan as he was also part of the Mixed Relay team that held off South Africa to achieve a first place finish.
In 2016 Jonny finished on the podium in all five of the ITU World Triathlon Series races he featured in leading up to the Grand Final. He famously ran out of steam within a few hundred metres of the finishing line at the Grand Final in Cozumel, Mexico, and was carried over the line by brother, Alistair. He finished second in the race, and second in the ITU World Series, missing out on the world title by just four points to Mario Mola of Spain.
Major Results
Jonny secured a first World Triathlon Series race win in two years after a stunning victory in Edmonton in July 2019 finishing ahead of Mola and was also part of the British Mixed Relay team that took silver at the ITU World Triathlon Series in Edmonton, Canada in July 2019.
After the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games moved to 2021, Brownlee approached the Games with a gold medal at World Triathlon Cup Arzachena and a top-ten finish on home soil at AJ Bell 2021 World Triathlon Championship Series Leeds. Jonny raced twice in Tokyo, first recording a fifth place finish in the men's individual race before completing his Olympic medal set with a mixed relay gold. He was part of the British team, alongside Jess Learmonth, Georgia Taylor-Brown and Alex Yee that were victorious when mixed relay made its Olympic debut.
