Team England's Alistair Brownlee has said that he would have backed himself to win the men's triathlon at the Commonwealth Games had he had a full training schedule.
Brownlee was the hot favourite to defend his 2014 title on the Gold Coast, having also won back-to-back Olympic gold medals, but he eventually finished down in 10th place - more than a minute behind winner Henri Schoeman.
The 29-year-old has missed part of the 2018 season due to a calf injury, and he acknowledged that the impact that had on his training may have cost him a better place in the sprint triathlon, which is half the distance of an Olympic race.
"The sprint distance is probably less good for me. I like hard courses and I would have preferred it to be a full-distance race on a super-hard course. [But] I would have preferred my calves to be good two months ago. If I had trained for the last two months, I reckon I would have won that race, it just didn't turn out that way," he told Sports Mole.
When asked whether the injury played a part, he added: "No, apart from I hadn't done enough training to be fit on the run."
The men's race was hit by a drastic change of weather shortly before it began as torrential wind and rain battered the course, but Brownlee believes that the conditions should have favoured him.
"I just let some air pressure out of my tyres. I was happy with that because the wet makes it a bit harder and it plays in to our advantage because we can corner it a bit better, but it didn't help as much today," he added.
Brownlee is expected to have another chance to claim a medal in the team relay, which takes place on Saturday.
Barney Corkhill
