Alistair Brownlee is convinced it could be a family affair when it comes to presenting the medals at London 2012 in one of sports toughest events.

Bingley Harriers Athletic Club’s 21-year-old world champion triathlete believes there is every chance he and his 19-year-old brother Jonathan could be sharing the podium.

Brownlee, from Horsforth, signed up this week for the ITU World Championship event in Hyde Park in July, which is a dress rehearsal on the Olympic course.

And he could not help fast-forwarding two years.

“There’s no physical reason why he couldn’t be right up there,” said Brownlee of his brother Jonathan, who came 27th in last year’s Hyde Park race but is a world junior runner-up and is racing up on the inside of the sport like a Cheltenham thoroughbred.

“We’ll just have to see how he develops over the next couple of years.

“If I wasn’t going to win he would be the next best person to win.

“It’s still a long time away and a lot can happen but he is improving all the time.

“The most important thing is that our rivalry brings us both on. We’re pushing each other every day. There is never a slack moment because you are always looking over your shoulder. I’ll be watching out for him.”

They see a lot of each other considering they train 40 hours a week. In the pool. On the bike. And pounding the streets.

Not just at the moment, however, because Alistair is suffering from a femoral stress fracture in his left leg, possibly brought on by training in the ice and snow.

It means almost certainly he will miss the first three world series events of the year in Sydney, Seoul and Madrid.

His comeback is likely to be in Hamburg in July, the week before the Hyde Park event.

It is an injury which cannot be rushed and Brownlee is a young man who knows his mind.

He gave up a medicine degree at the age of 18 after a term and a half at Girton College, Cambridge, because the facilities for triathlon were not suitable and the course would have impinged on his training.

The move back to Yorkshire coincided with his triathlon career blossoming, although Brownlee’s pedigree was obvious from an early age.

He competed in his first triathlon at ten. As a schoolboy at Bradford Grammar School he was the county’s cross-country and fell-running champion seven times. He became junior world triathlon champion in 2006 and under-23 world champion in 2008.

And at the Beijing Olympics he came 12th.

So it was not too unpredictable when he bagged a record hat-trick with the senior title last year.

The manner in which he achieved it, winning all five of the world series events he entered, culminating in being crowned world champion on Australia’s Gold Coast last September, could not have been more emphatic.

It is why Brownlee, who receives Lottery funding as well as being sponsored by Adidas, Diamond watches and BT, has a golden glow about him.

So why is Hyde Park in July so important?

“Because it is the Olympic course,” says Brownlee.

“It’s a dry run. We get to practise racing at Hyde Park and know what goes on around it.

“It’s also massive being British because last year it was the only event which was shown live on TV on a Sunday afternoon.

“So grandma gets to see you racing!”