TRIATHLON'S all-conquering Brownlee brothers have extra motivation to walk away with gold and silver from the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

The Yorkshire duo go into today's race at Strathclyde Country Park as the hot favourites to finish first and second for England.

This season has been unusually up and down for 26-year-old Alistair and 24-year-old Jonny but both appear to be coming into form just in time.

Olympic champion Alistair has been dominant in his last two races at the European Championships and at the World Triathlon Series race in Hamburg earlier this month.

And the two-time world champion thinks the undulating course will play into the hands of him and his brother.

He said: "It's a tough course. There's nothing particularly hard on it but nothing easy either.

"It'll be a really tough, honest race I think. That's the kind of race I like to do so I'm looking forward to it.

"I can't complain about my shape at all. I've done some of the best training I've done in a long time so I'm really happy about it and everything's gone as well as I could have hoped."

Jonny had to settle for third in Hamburg but that was a confidence-boosting result after back-to-back fifth places in Yokohama and Hyde Park, his worst placings in any race for four years.

The Brownlees have had to play second fiddle on the world stage this year to defending world champion Javier Gomez from Spain, who is almost certain to win the title for a fourth time.

The three have a keen rivalry and Jonny had hoped to get his own back in 2014 after being pipped on the line at the Grand Final in London last September.

The brothers both finished ahead of Gomez in Hamburg, and Olympic bronze medallist Jonny said: "I'm feeling good. I raced in Hamburg 10 days ago and that went well.

"Before that we were altitude training in St Moritz and before that Spain, so I've done a consistent block of training. I'm looking forward to racing.

"The Commonwealth Games has been a major aim since the start of the year. The world series hasn't gone as well as I hoped it could have done so it's up to the Commonwealth Games now.

"It definitely does make it bigger because unless Javier Gomez messes up or something happens, I'm not going to win the world series.

"But the Commonwealth Games is a one-day event and I love racing one-day events when all the pressure's on."

Jonny also thinks the experience of having gone into London with expectations of medals for both brothers will help keep tension at bay.

"It's not unfamiliar, London was very good practice for that," he said. "I don't think I'm ever going to experience pressure like that again so after that everything feels easier.

"We will go into it as favourites and I quite like that position.

"There's other good athletes out there - Richard Murray from South Africa is a very fast runner - but we'll try to keep them out of the race by making the swim and the bike hard."