Reigning world champion Alistair Brownlee’s return to racing after recovering from a stress fracture obviously has a lot of people talking, and with good reason: The 22-year-old Brit won all five Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship events that he competed last season, including the Madrid race, which he won in dominating fashion. Among those talking about his return is his competition, who no doubt has taken notice that Brownlee is back.

After suffering a femoral stress fracture in February, Brownlee was forced to take a few months off of run training, although his swim and bike training remained unaffected. Brownlee resumed running in April, but according to team officials, he has only been running at his normal volume for the last four weeks. Is four weeks enough time to put Brownlee back on top of the podium? We’ll find out on Sunday. In the meantime, here’s what Brownlee’s competition is saying about his return:

Javier Gomez (ESP)

“I’m very excited to have Alistair racing again. This is the world championship series and that means we should have the best athletes racing at every event. I think everyone is interested in seeing what kind of level he is at right now.”

“I’m not sure if having him back will change the way everyone else races. There are a lot great athletes out there and I think most guys want to do their own race. For me, it will be nice to have another strong swimmer in the field. With Brownlee and some of the strong Russian swimmers this may be a good race to get in a breakaway during the swim.”

Ivan Rana (ESP)

“I expect him to be near the top this weekend because he’s an amazing athlete, but to win this soon after an injury—I don’t know. We know how strong he’ll be in a month or two but it’s hard to say right now. I’m not sure how he’ll affect the race on Sunday. This is a very tough course and it’s going to be hot, so anything can happen.”

Courtney Atkinson (AUS)

“Last year Alistair showed a dominance by a single athlete similar to only Simon Lessing of the past. Its exciting to have him back racing again in Madrid.”

Jan Frodeno (GER)

“I´m looking forward to his return, especially since I consider him to be the kind of athlete who doesn´t just turn up without being prepared. I think in 2009 he caught a lot of us by surprise. Obviously, he won’t have the advantage of surprising us again. However he is a tough racer, so I look forward to going head to head against him!”

Jarrod Shoemaker (USA)

“It’s exciting to have Alistair back racing again. It just makes the field for this weekend even better. There are so many good guys in the mix that I expect Sunday to be wide open.”

Jonathan Brownlee (GBR)

“He may be my training partner and brother but on race day he’s just another competitor. I can’t really think about him while I race. He’s coming off of a difficult time with the injury, but I wouldn’t worry about him—he’ll do fine.”

Be sure to tune into www.triathlon.org/tv to follow the action as it happens. The women’s race will kick off at 1:15pm CET on Saturday June 5th with the men to follow 1pm CET on Sunday June 6th.