Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee will again be an absentee when the second race in this year’s World Series is held in Cape Town this weekend.

The organisers had hoped to see a battle between current world champion Javier Gomez and the Brownlee brothers, But Alistair is nursing an Achilles injury so it will be straight contest between the Spaniard and his predecessor as world champion, Jonny Brownlee.

The Bramhope ace will be seeking revenge after finishing second to Gomez in the opening race in Auckland.

In the past five events they have competed against each other, without Alistair on the start line, it’s been a 1-2 finish.

But who holds the upper hand? Well in races where Alistair hasn’t been a factor, Jonathan won Stockholm in 2012, before Gomez claimed the Grand Final title in Auckland in 2012 with a killer sprint.

In Yokohama and Madrid last year, Jonathan was on top, but Gomez prevailed in Auckland to start the 2014 season. And then there was last year’s Grand Final in London where Alistair also raced but was forced out of contention due to injury.

In possibly one of the best contests between the two, Gomez held on in an epic sprint to claim a history-making third ITU World Championship.

One thing is for sure, if these two start a WTS race, it’s more than likely they will fill the top two podium positions after it.

All in all, Jonathan Brownlee and Javier Gomez have come up against each other 18 times in WTS races, for five wins apiece.

But it seems like Gomez is the one to beat in Cape Town,with victories over Jonny in the past two races.

Alistair, who warned last autumn that he would restrict the number of races he took on in 2014, last raced at Abu Dhabi in March.

He successfully defended his short course title with Jonny claiming the silver medal.