Brownlee, 33, a six-times world champion, took bronze at the London 2012 Games and silver at the Rio 2016 Games - where his elder brother Alistair took gold on both occasions - and earned gold in the inaugural mixed relay at the Tokyo Olympics.

"I thought I was going to stop the Olympics stuff after Tokyo," he told the Northern Echo.

"I didn’t expect to be in this position. 

"I thought I was going into the long-distance stuff, but I really think I can be competitive.

"My training has gone well in the last few weeks and I only want to go to Paris if I genuinely can be a medal contender.

"I don’t want to go to Paris just to get the kit.

"To go again I want to be a genuine medal contender and the next 12 months will show that, hopefully that will be the case in the relay and the individual."

Brownlee has overcome injuries to return to full fitness ahead of the start of his season in Sardinia later this week.

A broken elbow was followed by a fractured wrist from a bike crash during a World Triathlon Championship Series event in his home city of Leeds last summer, ruling him out of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

"Missing the Commonwealths was a big shame, especially when it was not in my control," he said.

"It was hard the way it happened because I crashed the bike in Leeds, got told it was just a broken elbow so I would be fine.

"But I struggled through training, cycling indoors, trying to swim painfully.

"I told myself I would be fine, as athletes are experts at lying to themselves, and then it wasn’t quite right and a few more tests showed I had broken my scaphoid and it was completely over.

"So that was quite hard because it was an up-and-down rollercoaster.

"If anything, I forgot about the Commonwealths and just moved on and thought, 'That was a big aim, but now it is not'.

"If anything it told me that I absolutely love racing and I hate it on the sidelines and watching it.

"My body is all good now.

"I have had a couple of niggles over the winter, but they are healed now and I am ready to go."

He was speaking at the John Charles Centre for Sport in Leeds, where the Brownlee Foundation celebrated the 50,000th child taking part in its free mini triathlon events.