Alistair Brownlee has announced on social media that he will compete in the Ironman 70.3 Middle East Championship Bahrain on Friday 9 December, as part of a relay team.
This will be welcome news for fans of the older Brownlee brother, as he was not expected to be seen racing again this year after announcing back in September that he would be out for the season.
In today’s announcement, though, on Facebook and Instagram, Brownlee confirmed he will be taking on the swim as part of a relay team.
“Race week… kind of!” the post read. “I’ll be flying out to Bahrain tomorrow, ready to swim in IRONMAN 70.3 Bahrain as part of a relay team on Friday.
“I’ve really missed racing, so I’m excited to be in the race week atmosphere again!”
Full relay team to be confirmed
Following the announcement, triathletes naturally have been questioning who will be joining Brownlee on the team. At the moment start lists have not been updated to include his team and when questioned in the comments on his Instagram story, Brownlee simply replied with: “TBA!”.
But a post he shared from the Pho3nix Foundation also tagged Vincent Luis and Georgia Taylor-Brown, so the detectives among you can draw your own conclusions as to whether we may be about to see a truly world-class relay team in action. Either way though, it will be great to watch Alistair race again.
We last saw Brownlee on the start line at Ironman 70.3 Swansea where he took the win, before setting a British record in Sweden at Ironman Kalmar to secure his place at the Ironman World Championship in Kona in October.
Sadly, injury meant we did not see him competing on the Big Island this year.
Back in June, we again saw Brownlee turn to the swim portion of an event. After pulling out of the Pho3nix Sub7 project, he paced GB’s Joe Skipper during the swim leg instead, helping the 34-year-old through the 2.4 miles in Lake Senftenberg.
About Ironman 70.3 Bahrain
So, what conditions will Brownlee face on Friday? The swim is a bay swim and water temperatures are expected to be around 23°C with air temperatures around 22°C, so very comfortable.
The 1.9km course follows a rectangular L-shape that gives the swimmer a series of left-hand turns before heading into transition, where Brownlee will hand over to his (as-yet undisclosed) teammate.
Find out more and track Brownlee’s race here.