Great Britain’s Alistair Brownlee, a 20-year-old student at Leeds University, gave the world’s best triathletes a swim, a bike ride and a run for their money before finishing 12th in 30-degree temperatures at Ming Tombs reservoir earlier this morning.

However, at the front of the field a well-timed sprint from Jan Frodeno gave the German gold in a thrilling men’s triathlon race. He went clear with 50m to go to finish ahead of Canada’s Simon Whitfield and New Zealand’s Bevan Docherty, clocking one hour 48:53 seconds.

Alistair Brownlee, the second-youngest competitor in the 55-strong field, had been among the leading group for much of the run before fading to 12th place. Fellow Brit Will Clarke was two places behind Brownlee with Tim Don, suffering from a virus, failed to finish. Don, who had hoped to among the medals in Beijing, was struggling with illness in the build-up to the race and withdrew early.

Whitfield looked to have time his sprint finish to perfection, breaking from a group that included Frodeno, Docherty and pre-race favourite Javier Gomez of Spain. But Frodeno stuck with him and, with just 50m to the line, had the legs to out-sprint the Canadian to claim the gold.

It was a fitting end to a fantastic race in which Brit Brownlee more than played his part. The 20-year-old set the agenda on the 40km bike ride after a hugely impressive swim and looked in contention for a medal as he initially formed a six-man breakaway group in the 10km run.

But he just did not have the legs to keep up with the experienced Frodeno, Whitfield, Docherty, Gomez and Ivan Rana, falling off the pace with 7km to go, before crossing the line 86 seconds behind the winner.

Clarke was always playing catch-up after a disappointing 1.5km swim in a race which was competed in blistering heat.

You can watch highlights of the the men’s race here.

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