ALASTAIR BROWNLEE piled on the pounds last autumn after having ankle surgery. The rehabilitation process was tougher than six weeks at Weightwatchers.

But fast forward a few months and the only extra weight the Yorkshireman was carrying was the gold medal around his neck after steamrollering to victory in the men's triathlon in Rio ahead of brother Jonny in second place.

“Every day of this year has been so hard,”Alastair said afterwards. "I have woken up in pain every day.”

Despite returning to his lean and mean pomp, Brownlee remains the most brutish of heavyweights in the art of swimming, biking and running.

And he squashed his challengers until they could no longer breathe in the stifling heat yesterday to resolutely retain his Olympic title.

It was the kind of day where fitness and fearlessness were needed, the spectacle of 55 hopefuls plunging into the waters of Copacabana Beach before emerging for several circuits up and down its famous adjoining Avenida Atlantica was a marvel to observe.

But not to endure. If the sea was refreshing as Brownlee and his younger brother emerged among the leaders, everything else was torture by solar power as a group of 10 that pulled clear on the 40km cycle was speedily reduced to three, and then two on the concluding 10km run, with the siblings – both with world titles on their CV – left to divide the spoils amongst themselves.

“I missed a couple of the first water stations,” Jonny, the bronze medallist four years ago, revealed. “I felt really strong. I got through the first 5k without thinking about it. But then I was starting to struggle.”

He told his running mate to chill out during the race and his brother said: “I thought, ‘If he’s telling me to relax, he’s probably finding this quite hard,’” Alistair said. “So I pushed it on a bit more but I was really surprised to get that gap.”

One which grew exponentially with a two-minute spell that saw the reigning champion accelerate devastatingly out of reach. Brownlee, of late, has accustomed his body to pushing beyond sensibility. “Going to bed not being able to sleep because my legs hurt so much,” he said. “Getting up in the morning and not being able to walk because my ankles were so stiff I could hardly move. It's been like that literally for the last six months with a few bumps and injuries along the way.”

All with one goal in mind. In what has become a familiar conclusion, he halted to pick up a flag, exchange a few pleasantries, and then wave to the crowd before crossing the line and falling to his knees with exhaustion with his brother, by then, only six seconds adrift.

This remained a slice of history shared. Alistair is the first triathlete to retain an Olympic crown, the first siblings since 1960 to stand side by side on the top two steps of a Games podium, just as they had always hoped.

“It’s something that’s gone unsaid,” Alistair admitted. “We’re not really the kind of people to say that to each other that we could pull it off at an Olympics. It’s definitely never been said but probably in 2010, we thought we could do it in on the right day.

“We could have pulled it off in London in the right race. It was flipping close but Javier Gomez got between us. Here we knew if it went right we could do it. When the gap came up, the plan was to go as hard as we could on the first few laps on the bike. When that gap got up to about a minute, we knew we had a shot at it.”

Unlike four years ago, the younger Brownlee had believed the identity of the champion was not a forgone conclusion. Sidelined with a stress fracture in his foot when the test event was staged here 12 months ago, the 26-year-old has needed resilience of his own. “A lot of people said we had no chance,” he recounted. “You’ve got to appreciate special athletes.

“I realise how good Alistair is and I realised today especially he was very very good. I gave it everything to beat him. I was training as hard as I possibly could. And it’s a silver medal at an Olympic Games. If I wanted to get beaten by any athlete out there, it’s got to be Alistair."

They shared the moment. No hint of envy. “If I get towards the end of my career and I’m still chasing that gold medal, maybe I’ll start to get a bit more jealous,” he smiled. “But crossing the finish line, it was emotional. He was lying on the floor, very, very tired. I said, ‘We’ve done it.’”