IT is one of the most awesome challenges in sport. Beating not just one Brownlee brother, but both of them.

Fortunately, Grant Sheldon has no shortage of belief in his own ability. The Scottish triathlete, named alongside Marc Austin last week for the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast in April, feels in his bones that he is capable of overcoming this illustrious West Yorkshire double act, who finished first and second in this gruelling event at the Rio Olympics. Now all he has to do is prove it.

“Have I ever beaten them?” says Sheldon, who has competed alongside the illustrious pair in a GB vest on many occasions, and has a place alongside them on the world class performance squad. “Well, there’s been a few races where things have happened and they’ve not been in the race. I’ve never been a race with them but I do feel as if I can [beat them], but you’ve just got to go and do it.

“At the end of the day they are the reigning Olympic champions, first and second,” he added. “Any races they do, particularly Alistair, he somehow wins it. Does he look as fit as he maybe was? I don’t know. But they’ve got the credentials so they’ve got a target on their back.

“They’ve got a set way of racing. They’re going to swim hard, push the bike and more and more I think try to not make it a running race, although obviously they are fantastic runners too. So when one of them’s in, you know it’s going to be pushed like that. When there’s two of them, the two of them will push like that and it will end up becoming like that. I rarely see them to be honest, other than a few days in and around races so I know them but I’m not terribly close to them. But there’s always a little bit of a rivalry. I don’t know how much they’ll be looking at us but I’m pretty sure we’ll be looking at them to beat them and bring them down a peg.”

Rhe competition he and Austin will experience in the Gold Coast – most likely twice, when you consider the team event – doesn’t end there, of course, with a field stacked with Australian and South African exponents of the event. “You’ve got the Brownlees who are one part, but you’ve got a number of other athletes that will all be wanting to medal and win that race so you’ve got to watch them all,” he said. “Jacob Birtwhistle’s an amazing runner, he’s not the strongest of swimmers. Richard Murray’s similar and then you’ve got Henri Schoeman who’s a phenomenal swimmer but isn’t the best of runners but he’s proved himself recently. But I think a medal is more than realistic. I’m generally quite good in the heat, being a smaller build, I can handle it. Although being from Scotland doesn’t help.”

Sheldon feels he is an older, wiser athlete than the one which was second Scot home in 14th in the men’s individual event at Glasgow 2014. While his fellow Scot David McNamee, who recently made it to the podium in the world iron man championships, finished a creditable sixth on the day, Sheldon still reckons he over-trained in the lead-up to the event and consequently felt terrible on the day.

“It was a weird year, 2014,” said Sheldon. “I‘d just come out of the junior ranks where I medalled at the World Juniors and got on the podium at the first World Cup. Then I did my first WTS races and I was fighting around for that top ten. So going into the 2014 Games, I set myself quite high expectations and on the day I felt absolutely horrendous.

“I really over-cooked it going into it,” added the sports scholar and mathematics student who was crowned World University Games Champion last year. “I was training out of my skin for two or three weeks before it and I picked up a little niggle and a couple of little things like that got in the way. I was young and a little bit naïve. I definitely know how to prepare myself better now.”

Not that there aren’t still occasional mishaps now along the way. When a broken arm last year – sustained when falling off the bike – disrupted his normal training schedule, what better way to break his way back in than some track sessions, a spell which saw him crowned Scottish 5,000m and 10,000m champion, then follow up with a 10k title on the road.

The 23-year-old laughs off the achievement, but having come into the sport from a swimming background, he now has plenty of strings to his bow. Even if, unlike his Team Scotland team-mate Beth Potter, he has no plans to double up in the two disciplines. ‘It was OK, it wasn’t anything too special time wise," he said. "I came off my bike a few months before and broke my arm which cut my triathlon season short so I just wanted to focus on something. I love running. Running’s probably my favourite sport out of the three so I thought I’d change focus, try and get some run races.

“Swimming’s been a tricky one. I came into the sport always at the front of races swimming wise but I think when you start on bike training, run training, your body changes and for me I’ve found it quite difficult as I’ve progressed into senior to keep my swimming at that level. But last year I made some big improvements swimming wise. I didn’t really get chance to race much with falling off my bike a couple of times but I honestly think it [my swimming] is there. Now I just need to go and prove it.”