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Britain's Alistair Brownlee won a brilliant Olympic triathlon gold with his younger brother Jonny in bronze as Spain's Javier Gomez took silver.

The elder Brownlee, injured for the first half of the year, went away on the 10km run and crossed the line with a Union flag draped over his shoulders to delight a huge Hyde Park crowd.

Jonny had incurred a 15-second penalty for mounting his bike too early in transition one and had to take it at the end of the penultimate run lap.

That cost him any realistic chance of a fraternal one-two, but he dug in over the last 2.5km to hang on for a gutsy third.

Alistair has been the dominant triathlete of the last three years when not injured, but when he tore his Achilles at the start of the year his Olympic dream seemed in doubt.

He only returned to World Series racing in Kitzbuhel last month but wound up the pace to burn off 2010 world champion Gomez in ruthless fashion.

Both Brownlees came out of the 1500m Serpentine swim in a lead group of five that also included Gomez, with third Briton Stuart Hayes just a few seconds back.

Jonny then made an error by mounting his bike too early and so incurred a 15-second penalty that he would have to take at some point on the run.

That group of five built a lead of around 20 seconds after the first bike lap of seven but were then closed down as a large group came together with four laps left.

All the big guns were in that lead pack coming into transition two, meaning the battle for medals would come down to the 10km run.

The brothers went off hard, taking Gomez with them as a small gap immediately opened up, and for the first two laps around the lake the three stayed together.

The younger Brownlee was the first to drop off, and as his elder brother wound the pace up relentlessly from the bell Gomez capitulated.