Paris triathlon: “Empty legs” on the wrong day for Georgia Taylor-Brown

“I was disappointed to not walk away with a medal, but you know what, I always say: ‘All I can do is give it my everything, and that’s exactly what I did.’”

That was Georgia Taylor-Brown’s summation as the 30-year-old finished sixth in today’s Olympic triathlon, staying in contention throughout the 15.km swim and 40km cycle before falling off the pace in the 10km run.

“I had nothing on the run. Obviously, timing is not great to have empty legs, but it is what it is. I got in the front pack. I tried to work hard on the bike with a few [others] and I just didn’t have it on the run.”

Taylor-Brown had a long injury lay-off in the second-half of 2023 that kept her out of racing until March, but refused to blame the result on the calf tear that meant she missed the opportunity to qualify at both the test event and WTCS grand final in Spain.

“I’ve been feeling really good in the lead-up to this and been training the best that I ever have probably, so I don’t know what happened. I was just empty unfortunately,” she continued. 

“I would love to have walked away with an individual medal but I know in the past eight months coming back from injury I’ve given absolutely everything and that’s all I could have done.

“We have those days, we’re not robots. I worked quite hard on the bike and maybe I should have sat in a little bit more. But it’s a triathlon and I want to work hard on the bike.”

Taylor-Brown won’t have long to wait for a chance at redemption. Despite the below par run, she is likely to return to action in the team mixed relay on Monday, where the as yet unnamed quartet will try and defend the inaugural title they won in Tokyo.

“Hopefully I can get a start in the relay team and would love to be able to go out there and race, but we’ll see what happens,” she added.

Tim Heming Freelance triathlon journalist

About

Experienced sportswriter and journalist, Tim is a specialist in endurance sport and has been filing features for 220 for a decade. Since 2014 he has also written a monthly column tackling the divisive issues in swim, bike and run from doping to governance, Olympic selection to pro prize money and more. Over this time he has interviewed hundreds of paratriathletes and triathletes from those starting out in the sport with inspiring tales to share to multiple Olympic gold medal winners explaining how they achieved their success. As well as contributing to 220, Tim has written on triathlon for publications throughout the world, including The Times, The Telegraph and the tabloid press in the UK.