I grew up watching the Brownlees and have become Olympic champion – now I would like others to observe
Yee, who won gold at Paris 2024, will be the headline act when the World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) returns to the capital for the first time since 2015 in July.
Sam Renouf (PTO CEO), Alex Yee, Ruth Daniels (British Triathlon CEO) and Esther Britten (UK Sport Head of Events) at the London T100 launch
Alex Yee wants to use triathlon’s return to London as a chance to unearth the next homegrown Olympic champion.
Yee, who won gold at Paris 2024, will be the headline act when the World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) returns to the capital for the first time since 2015 in July.
The elite race is part of a wider weekend of activities including mass participation events over various distances, with Gordon Ramsay and Adam Peaty among those to take part last year.
Yee, who grew up in Lewisham, relished watching the world’s best in his home city growing up and hopes the summer extravaganza can have a similar galvanising effect.
“The opportunity to race in London really excites me,” he said. “Back in the day, I would travel on the underground by myself to go and watch a race at Hyde Park or to go and watch a race at the Excel.
“To have that free level of competition really creates that accessibility and that relatability to a sport.
“Having Alistair and Jonny (Brownlee) as inspiration to go and watch and be like ‘there’s a Brit at the front’ was massive for me.
“As a population, we really back our own so to have somebody like myself, like Beth (Potter), like Georgia (Taylor-Brown), and so many others to get behind is a great thing for young people.
“If we can have those role models within different sports, not just a mainstream sport like football, that is hugely important.”
Triathlon bosses are hoping the event turns into their sport’s equivalent of the London Marathon, which Yee took part in last year as he turned his attention to endurance running.
He clocked the second fastest time by a Brit over the distance in Valencia in December and documented his journey in a YouTube series which has attracted hundreds of thousands of views.
Yee is now keen for triathlon to gain greater media exposure. Previous WTCS events in the UK have been screened live on the BBC and the Olympic champion hopes to be performing in front of as many eyeballs as possible this summer.
“The ability to watch triathlon is extremely difficult,” he said. “To watch most World Series races is stuck behind a paywall and I still think it is bonkers that we have to pay to watch our sport.
“The T100 have done a good job of making it accessible to others but when I was growing up and watching World Series, it was on BBC and I was able to watch so many of my favourite athletes. I could tune in on my TV without having to ask any questions.”
Yee will renew his rivalry with New Zealander Hayden Wilde as he makes his return to the sport and he feels his break has ‘re-lit a fire’ within him.
“We’ve seen some great rivalries and for us to be able to race with personality is really exciting,” he said.
“You don’t want racing which is a foregone conclusion before the start. To stand on a start line with so many athletes that could win a race will be really exciting and hopefully we can get people excited about the sport.”
The London T100 Triathlon weekend takes place 25-26 July. For more info or to register for its amateur events, visit: https://t100triathlon.com/london/participate/
