Georgia Taylor-Brown MBE and Sian Rainsley were both recognised at the recent annual Europe Triathlon Awards, winning awards recognising their achievements in 2021.
Taylor-Brown was named Female Athlete of the Year at the awards ceremony in Spain, while Rainsley won the Europe Triathlon Cup award for her consistency of performances across World and Europe events in 2021.
The awards round-off memorable years for the two British triathletes with Taylor-Brown recognised for her medal-winning performances at the Tokyo Olympic Games, where she showed incredible resilience to battle back from a puncture on the bike to claim silver in the women’s race.
The 28-year-old returned to the podium, just a few days later, this time on the top step having been part of the history-making Mixed Relay team who were crowned Olympic champions in Tokyo. More medal success followed for Taylor-Brown, who also claimed silver at the 2021 season-ending World Triathlon Championship Series Abu Dhabi.
Speaking after receiving the Female Athlete of the Year award, Taylor-Brown said: “I am completely humbled and shocked to win the award to be honest. I didn't get to race much last year and there are so many incredible women that put out some pretty hefty seasons and there were amazing results coming in, with some new faces hitting the scene as well, which is always great to see.
“It really does mean so much to be recognised as us athletes put in so much work, day in, day out. Out of all of the women in triathlon that they could have picked, they picked me, and that’s pretty special.
“I just want to be able to do what makes me happy and hopefully inspire young girls to keep persevering with their dreams. Because no dream is ever too big or crazy.”
Rainsley was recognised for her performances at events in 2021 with the 24-year-old ending a busy season with a number of top-10 finishes, including winning bronze at Europe Triathlon Championships Valencia in September to add to the European Mixed Relay gold she won earlier in the summer.
Picking-up the Europe Triathlon Cup Award, Rainsley’s consistency across the year was rewarded which included competing at nine different events, some featuring multiple races, including finishing fifth in the women’s race at World Triathlon Championship Series Hamburg and sixth in the Mixed Relay at the same event.
The top-five finish in Hamburg followed Rainsley’s World Triathlon Championship debut at AJ Bell 2021 World Triathlon Championship Series Leeds in June, with starts also on the World Series in Edmonton (14th) and Abu Dhabi (24th).
Sharing her reaction after winning the Europe Triathlon Cup Award, Rainsley said: “2021 was my first season as a full-time senior so I wanted to grab as many racing opportunities to compete with the best. This made for a busy calendar from European Cups, World Cups, World Championship Series and both sprint and standard distance European Championships.
“To win the European Cup Series from these results was a complete surprise and I’m proud to have raced consistently at the top to take the overall win.”
