Now he's got to acclimatise, Brownlee admitting an extension of this week's heatwave would do very nicely indeed!

The University of Leeds student is the current World Under-23 Triathlon champion and has taken athletics by storm.

The Beijing posting is a new career high – Brownlee is one of just three male athletes representing Team GB in a competition destined to be played out in soaring temperatures in China.

Unfortunately for Brownlee this week's heatwave will prove something of a damp squib and sessions in Leeds University's heat chamber are the closest he'll get to Beijing's conditions.

However, that takes absolutely no gloss off Brownlee's selection, the triathlete conceding the Olympics Games are what every athlete aspires to.

"Everyone wants to go to the Olympics, it's every athlete's dream," said Brownlee.

"I was pretty happy when I found out! We kind of had an idea, as we had a selection race so we knew what the criteria was and I got that, but then I just had to wait and see what the decision was. When I got it I was pretty happy.

"Everyone was proud, and I was over the moon."

Brownlee's rise up the triathlete ranks has been incredible – the former Bradford Grammar School student was crowned junior world champion in 2006.

Brownlee was then runner-up in 2007 and in Canada last month became only the second triathlete in history to become world champion at both junior and under-23 level.

Despite his fantastic achievements, Brownlee admits he considered London 2012 a more realistic aim but is now intent on grabbing the bull by the horns.

"I wasn't really sure if I was going to qualify and I was really aiming for London," he said.

"It was more about 2012 and there is a lot more before that – like the World Championships and that kind of thing.

"I was thinking more about that but now that I've got it I'm going to make the most of it. I'm very excited."

Brownlee is giving himself every chance of making the most of it, revealing he spends over a day a week in total training to put himself in peak condition.

"I'm just training about 25 hours-a-week, doing my swimming, biking and running," he said. "I'm doing that most days at the moment and then at the end of this month we are going to the holding camp in South Korea.

"I think we're in South Korea for two-and-a- half weeks and then it's pretty much straight to Beijing at the last minute. It will be an amazing experience being with all the other athletes and in the Olympic village before going to China."

For a 20-year-old, Brownlee is already well travelled with Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada already stamped in his passport.

However, China is a different ball game and with past experience of Japan, Brownlee knows the temperatures will provide one heck of a challenge.

"I've not been to Asia very much, but I've been to Japan a few years ago and it was hot!" said Brownlee.

"They are expecting it to be around 34 degrees and it will be pretty hot and humid, they are saying about 50 per cent humidity.

"It will be hot temperatures, but at least the heatwave is helping us here!

"I'm also going to do a few sessions in the heat chamber at Leeds Uni' – I've done some before there.

"I expect it to be very hot and very humid and as far as the race goes it will be fast and furious from start to finish."

Brownlee seems to have been a natural born triathlete, an ardent swimmer and runner from a young age.

"I've swam and ran for a while really, since I was really young, about six or seven," he said.

"I then did cross-country races at school and then local fell races when I was about 11 and the triathlon was just something to do after that."

The event is clearly in the Brownlee blood – Alistair's 18-year-old brother, Jonathan, is also one of the world's most promising triathletes and finished runner-up in the recent World Junior Championships in Canada.

So there is every chance the Brownlee family may eventually herald two Olympian brothers.

"My brother is doing well and he came second a couple of weeks ago in the World Juniors," said Alistair. "I think he's hoping to get there next time."

Also hoping to get there this time are Brownlee's parents though he admits they are having rather a hard time finding flights to China!
"I think they are coming," he said. "They are looking at getting flights, but it is pretty hard to get tickets."

Brownlee's parents have around five weeks to find those tickets as their son continues his intense training and heat chamber sessions.

Brownlee is in his second year studying sports science at Leeds and says the university have been "fantastic" in being flexible as he shuffles his triathlon training and studies.

In graduate Rebecca Gallantree (diving) and first-year student Claire Cashmore (paralympic swimming), Leeds have three Olympians with university connections and in Brownlee they might just have a medallist.

Young and comparatively inexperienced, Brownlee knows he is up against it but still harbours hopes of "sneaking" a medal.

"I'm pretty optimistic I can get a top-10 or top-eight position," he said. "It's a massive challenge but you never know and if things go my way I could maybe sneak a medal.

"It's unlikely I suppose but anything can happen – in bike races you can have crashes and people can escape so we'll see."

Brownlee also knows he will have plenty more opportunities to win an Olympic medal, admitting there is every possibility of him competing in four competitions.

"Who knows?" he said. "There is definitely 2012 and I might have two more after that."

So the countdown is on for Brownlee as he prepares ro rub shoulders with the world's best athletes in soaring temperatures amid the bright lights of Beijing.

It will feel like a world away from Leeds, where he now lives and his hometown of Dewsbury, but Brownlee revealed Team GB have taken several steps, including culinary ones, to make the Far East feel like home-from-home.

"There will be all sorts of people going with us – there'll be a doctor, a physio and there's chef," he said. "We want to try and eat things we are used to and we won't want to try too much Asian food that we are not used to.

"I like anything, but I do like a Yorkshire roast dinner!"