“I’m just having a massage at the moment, so if you hear any funny noises you know what’s happening,” Jonathan tells me over the phone before the interview’s even properly begun. I think about asking him if he’d like me to call back later, but then I realise that preparing for an Olympic triathlon is clearly quite a time consuming business and that there might not be another chance to speak again later. Chat to them now, when they’re having a massage, or don’t chat to them at all. I go with the former. 

“When I was younger, I actually wanted to be a professional footballer for Leeds United. It was only when I got to about 13 or 14 and I realised I wasn’t good enough to play football, that I shifted to triathlon,” says Jonathan when I ask him if he’d always wanted to be an Olympic triathlete. Not a bad decision, all things considered. Leeds United were trying, and still are trying, to rejoin the top division of English football when the Brownlees were listening to the national anthem with medals around their necks. 

“From about 10, I think it was, I wanted to be an Olympic triathlete,” says Alistair; who’s two years older than Jonathan. Another classic example, if another example was needed, of a sporting champion dedicating their young lives to a dream and then seeing that dream all the way through to its most satisfying of conclusions.

It’s not long before the conversation inevitably drifts towards that spectacular day at London 2012, and how it felt not only to achieve what they achieved but to do it in front of a home crowd as well.

“Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic,” Jonathan tells me. And while it’s clear that the pair are chuffed with everything that happened in the capital that summer, their down-to-earth responses when questioned about their success really strikes a chord. “I keep my gold medal in a sock drawer. It’s nice to have, but I wouldn’t want to keep it in a frame or anything like that,” Alistair says, when I ask him where his medal is now.

“I’m just having a massage at the moment, so if you hear any funny noises you know what’s happening”

After beating Jonathan to gold in London four years ago, I put it to Alistair that if they’re neck and neck on the closing straight in Rio he might be tempted to hang back and settle for silver so that his younger brother can get the gold medal this time around. When it comes, the answer is as emphatic as it is unsurprising: “Oh, no. If we’re neck and neck in Rio, I’m going to sprint for the finishing line like I’ve never won a race in my life. If that happens this summer though, it’s the dream scenario.”

Talking of Rio, it’s clear from my brief time talking to Jonathan that he isn’t going to the first ever Olympic Games to be hosted in South America to play second fiddle to his Olympic-champion brother. He’s going there to upgrade his medal from London; he’s going there to win.

“Gold. It has to be gold. There’s no point going if you don’t believe you can win,” he tells me when I ask him what he’s looking to achieve in Brazil.

With a remarkable 65 medals won at London 2012, and a third place finish to go with it, still fresh in many people’s minds I was curious to find out from people who lived and breathed that incredible fortnight from an athlete’s perspective whether Team GB would be able to live up to the spectacularly high standards they set themselves then.

“So, it’s going to be difficult what with athletes like Victoria Pendleton and Chris Hoy retiring because those guys offered you guaranteed medals in the cycling, but I do think we’ve got a really strong team this year,” says Jonathan.

“Obviously, I’m not really qualified to comment on other people’s sports but I don’t think there’s any reason why Team GB can’t match the success of London 2012,” Alistair adds, boosting my quietly-held confidence that Britain can match their stunning exploits from last time out (at the time of writing Britain are second in the medal table, and on course for their best ever showing at an away Olympics).

“Oh, no. If we’re neck and neck in Rio, I’m going to sprint for the finishing line like I’ve never won a race in my life.”

Before I let the Brownlees get back to their massages, and other preparations for Rio 2016, I put my mischievous hat on and ask them which brother, if any, do their parents root for when they’re head-to-head in the closing stages of an elite-level triathlon? The answer from Alistair, as you might expect it to be, is one that only underlines the fact that this isn’t just a team unit – it’s a family one as well.

“You’d have to ask them yourself, and even then you’d have to force them into giving an honest answer which I don’t think they would,” he says.

Rather than track them down and shine a light directly into the eyes of Alistair and Jonathan’s parents until they give me an answer to this question, I decide to let it go as it’s probably the kind of distraction Team Brownlee could do without right about now. Putting my cards well and truly on the table, I wish the brothers well for Rio and establish that Mpora will be cheering for them loudly. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,” Shakespeare once wrote. In the case of these Olympian brothers, it’s a line that feels particularly apt.

Read more from the Olympic Issue here  or follow the latest Olympic news here.

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