“Two winters ago it snowed really badly in Yorkshire,” he began. “It was about minus 15 and I was mountain biking and without realising it I went across a lake. “I slipped and my hand went through the ice as I fell. “Half my body was frozen by the ice and I had to ride home for two hours like that, in the pouring rain. “It’s not always fun training in Yorkshire – but it makes you strong.” Yorkshire breeds hard workers. Perhaps it is our industrial heritage that means people from these parts never shy away from putting in a shift at the coalface. That mentality is paying dividends at an Olympic Games in which Yorkshire is becoming the toast of the nation. Jessica Ennis, Ed Clancy, Andrew Triggs Hodge and Katherine Copeland all worked tirelessly to reach the top step of the podium. And the Brownlee brothers, Olympic champion Alistair and bronze medallist Jonny, are of the same mentality. Before the Leeds brothers came along, triathletes trained 25 hours a week. Alistair and Jonny graft for 35 hours a week. They love nothing more than heading out of their front door in Bramhope and running or cycling out into the countryside. They have an insatiable work ethic, and a deep love for their surroundings and their home county. They hate to miss a training session. The Brownlees are forever evolving their training routines, and they adhere to them strictly. If one gets out of bed to train on a cold morning, the other follows quickly. Just one of these young men with that typical Yorkshire grit and hard-working mentality would have taken the world by storm, as Alistair did before Jonny emerged in the last 18 months. We have already seen at London 2012 what individuals from the White Rose can achieve by knuckling down and getting on with it. But what makes the Brownlees unique is that they are a two-headed piston working side-by-side to conquer the world. They have that special brotherly bond that sets them apart. With that comes a deep respect and admiration for one another which manifests itself in a determination to help each other out. Yet Alistair and Jonny also have a competitive willingness to get an edge over each other as well – as Malcolm Brown, the triathlon performance director, recently put it, the ability to kick each other up the backside when it is needed. As Jonny recovered from collapsing yesterday, Alistair spoke with friends and colleagues, laughing, joking and revelling in the rare feeling of being an Olympic champion. Aside from an occasional look in the direction of his ailing younger brother, Alistair’s general perspective on the situation was: “He’ll be all right, just give him a few minutes.” But when they stood on the podium together just moments later, first and third in an Olympic final, the big brother in Alistair shone through. He looked over to his younger sibling, for whom the colour had returned but the legs were still shaky, and mouthed: “Are you okay?” It was a subtle, deeply moving moment that summed up perfectly the brothers’ bond. Even in the race, big brother was looking out for younger brother. When Alistair learned of Jonny’s time penalty yesterday his first instinct was to wonder how he could help his younger brother join him on the podium. The champion said: “I was thinking about what I could possibly do to alleviate it, tactically. “If I can go as hard as I can and only take Jonny with me then maybe he can come back through the field. But we can’t complain, two brothers first and third.” Yesterday’s success was also a victory for the brothers’ extended family. Stuart Hayes, the third wheel of the British triathlon team, was selected with the idea that he would shelter the Brownlees from any attacks in the cycling race, a job he executed to perfection. He led off the front for much of the cycle race, keeping the pace high and the Brownlees where they wanted to be. Even the Slovakian Richard Varga, who led the swim portion of the race in a triathlon record, spent time training with the boys at altitude in Switzerland, and in Leeds over the past two months. Swimming has often been the Yorkshire siblings’ weakest – if there is such a vulnerability – event but they kept in Varga’s slipstream and left the Serpentine hot on his heels going into the cycling. After the race, Alistair sought out Varga to thank the Slovakian for his selfless task. And the brothers were unequivocal in their praise of Londoner Hayes. Alistair said: “One of the things we didn’t realise was how good it’s been the last six weeks to two months training as a team with the one goal in mind of me and Jonny coming on the podium. “All three of us are immensely proud of the achievement.” The build-up in recent days had been all about how individuals from rival nations would gang up on the Brownlees and work against them. In the end it was their brotherly bond, founded on a bedrock of true Yorkshire grit and sheer desire to be the best, that won the day.