British triathlon sensation Georgia Taylor-Brown exclusive: 569 days later

When Olympics.com spoke to British triathlete Georgia Taylor-Brown before Tokyo 2020, she described the triathlon as a “melee of madness”, something akin to a movie about a zombie apocalypse with a terrifying scramble to the first buoy of the swim as every athlete jostles aggressively for position.

“I’ve been punched in the face before,” the Olympic individual silver medallist told us at the time, as she painted a picture that was somewhere between a scene from Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and The Last of Us.

Like the protagonists of The Last of Us, Taylor-Brown is a survivor. She’s come through the hard knocks of injury, disappointment and bad luck to stake her place as one of the greatest triathletes of her generation.

And in the same vein as the main characters of HBO’s smash hit, she finds humour in the darkest places - even when the most important moments of her life are on the line.

Take for instance, the final of the women’s individual triathlon race at Tokyo 2020. With two kilometres of the bike ride left to go Taylor-Brown heard a loud ‘pfffft’ rising from below her before realising to her horror that for the first time in her career she had a mid-race puncture.

It would be enough to scare the bejeezus out of most athletes, but Taylor-Brown seems to be built differently.

“I initially sort of laughed,” she told us in an exclusive interview from her training camp in Portugal. “Because I thought ‘Well, obviously I’ve got a puncture, like that’s just my luck this year!’ Nothing’s gone right, everything’s gone wrong, I got injured leading in to the Games - so initially I kind of laughed.”

At that moment, you’d imagine a hard whack across the jawbone would have been preferable to such a race-endangering twist of events at the Olympics.

However, Taylor-Brown is a fierce competitor - no matter what stands in her way. With no time to mope about what could have been, she adjusted her race plan, slowed at the corners, dealt with the “wobbles” in the transition to the run and continued on her quest towards the second step of the Olympic podium.

Georgia Taylor-Brown and the Games that almost didn’t happen

Perhaps even more harrowing than the puncture she had to deal with at the Olympics was the injury she suffered weeks before that put even her participation at the Games in peril.

Just weeks out from Tokyo, a leg injury left the Manchester-raised athlete on crutches and battling to even make it to the starting line in Japan. 

“There’s me 11 weeks out and finding that I’ve got a stress response in my femur and it’s just not what I’d expected at all,” she said, looking back on those scary moments before her first-ever participation at an Olympic Games. “And things were going so well!”

Taylor-Brown made the decision to keep the bad news within her camp and just roll with the punches. 

“I think I just didn’t want people knowing, because once they know your weaknesses then they can really work on that,” she said. ”I just had to keep it a secret, which was really hard on social media because I’m an honest person and I’m open about training and how I’m feeling but it wouldn’t have been a good time to announce I was injured.”

Two weeks without training and six without running was followed by a gradual return to full fitness. 

Not ideal preparation for the biggest race of your life. 

But the rewards for a final five-week push pre-Tokyo, where she admits she “went really hard”, were not one but two podium finishes, with silver in the individual race followed by a stunning gold in the mixed relay.

The fightback was complete and history had been made.

Staying true to yourself when everything is changing around you

It’s been 569 days since Taylor-Brown stepped onto the podium as an Olympic silver medallist and 565 since she, Alex Yee, Jonny Brownlee and Jess Learmonth won gold in the first-ever mixed relay triathlon event in Olympic history.

“I’ll never forget that feeling of becoming Olympic champions,” Taylor-Brown says of a victory that was all the sweeter for what she’d been through to attain it.

“I think for the individual, I experienced every single emotion when I crossed the finish line because it was almost like I was so happy but it was such a relief it was done,” she said, before adding about her mixed team victory: “Just seeing the pictures and videos of us at the finish line gives me goosebumps and gets me emotional. And to be able to share those feelings with the rest of the team after what we’d put into it was just amazing to be a part of.”

After such a colossal event, you’d imagine it might be hard for someone to stay grounded when everything in your world has changed around you.

But Taylor-Brown isn’t letting any of the fame or recognition go to her head. It’s a testament to the person she is and will most likely always be.

“It’s definitely not changed me, and I’m glad I’m still the same person,” says the 28-year-old whose post-Olympics awards have included receiving an MBE from the British royal family at Windsor Castle.

“I hope I’m just the same humble, happy Georgia just enjoying training and focusing on what’s next, really.”

Look out for the second part of the Olympics.com interview with Georgia Taylor-Brown on 28 February, where she speaks about her epic battle for the 2022 triathlon World Championship Series title, her rivalry and friendship with Olympic champion Flora Duffy, and her hopes for Paris 2024.