Sophie Evans hasn’t closed the door on the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. That’s despite switching her competitive focus to IRONMAN 70.3 and the T100 Triathlon World Tour following the birth of her daughter Phoebe in May 2025. Speaking ahead of this Friday’s Spain T100 in Pamplona — where she lines up in what organisers have billed a Diamond-tier field — Evans addressed the lingering wound of her Paris 2024 omission, the realities of post-partum racing, and whether the short-course pull is still strong enough to act on.
“I’ve definitely not completely shut the door on short-course triathlon. For me, the pull of the Olympics is still there, and I’m just figuring out this year and next year if that pull is enough to keep me in short course.”
Back on the Start Line
Evans — formerly Coldwell — made her competitive return at the World Triathlon Cup in Lanzarote on March 14, finishing fifth in 1:02:42. Winner Nina Eim of Germany crossed in 1:02:14; Georgia Taylor-Brown came second, five seconds back. The result was notable enough on its own. But it was Evans’s bike split that turned heads.
Her 33:08 on the three-lap, crosswind-battered 40km course was the fastest of any woman in the field — clocked despite exiting the swim 27 seconds off the front pack. She faded from the lead group in the early stages of the run, which is hardly surprising for an athlete eight months postpartum, but the raw speed was unmistakably there.
Three weeks later she debuted at IRONMAN 70.3 Valencia, finishing second in 4:06:24 — two minutes and 45 seconds behind Swiss winner Cathia Schär, who finished in 4:03:39. Evans came out of the 1.9km swim second overall, four seconds behind Alice Betto, and held that form across the 90km bike. The run gap to Schär was the deciding margin. A 70.3 podium in your first-ever attempt at the distance, though, is not nothing.
Paris — The Decision That Still Stings
The Paris selection controversy is the context that makes every Evans result carry extra weight. Heading into the 2024 selection, she was ranked eighth in the Olympic standings — four places above Kate Waugh at 12th. She also finished ahead of Waugh at WTCS Cagliari, a race British Triathlon had explicitly designated a “priority” event. The three-person GB panel nonetheless picked Waugh alongside Beth Potter and Georgia Taylor-Brown, leaving Evans out for the second consecutive Olympics after she had also travelled to Tokyo in 2021 as a reserve.
Evans appealed. An independent arbitrator upheld the appeal, finding British Triathlon had failed to follow its own selection policy in weighting the priority event. The panel met again — and upheld its original decision regardless.
The closest she comes to making peace with it is through Phoebe.
“I don’t get sad about it anymore. Maybe that’s because I now have Phoebe, who wouldn’t be here if I’d gone to the Olympics. And it’s very hard for me to want a different outcome because I couldn’t imagine not having her.”
“I still believe they made the wrong decision — I will have that written on my gravestone. And I think the performances in Paris maybe show that it was the wrong decision. It was a tough watch; certain things that I said in my appeal came true in the race and I think the fallout from that decision is still ongoing.”
LA28 — Honest Reckoning
The first LA28 Olympic qualification period opens on May 18, 2026, with points available through to May 18, 2028 across two separate one-year windows. Evans is characteristically direct about what a short-course return would actually demand of her.
“I know I’m never going to be as quick as a Cassandre, a Beth or a Leonie. So this year is all about figuring out if it’s enough for me, enough for our family dynamics, or actually whether middle-distance racing is something I enjoy more and if it fits better for us.”
That honesty extends to the near-miss that preceded her pregnancy. After Paris, she admits she almost walked away from the sport entirely.
“I was at the point really where I didn’t know if I wanted to do triathlon at all. Then I fell pregnant with Phoebe. And it wasn’t until January or February, when everyone was getting ready to race, and I was a bit like, ‘Oh, do you know what? Actually, I do quite miss it.'”
What’s Next
Evans races the Spain T100 in Pamplona on May 23 — a women’s-only pro race over a 2km swim, 80km bike and 18km run, with $275,000 on the line. The course takes athletes through the Alloz Reservoir before a rolling point-to-point bike leg into the city, finishing across 18km of medieval streets. It is one of four women’s-only pro races on the 2026 T100 World Tour calendar, and by all accounts the strongest field she will have faced since her return.
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