Reintroducing Sophie Evans: We talk motherhood, motivation, and returning to elite racing postpartum
Sophie Coldwell, now officially Sophie Evans, is gearing up to make her comeback to pro racing after the birth of her daughter, Phoebe. We talk what it's like to become a motherhood as an elite athlete and what's on the cards next
New year, new name, new mum. Reintroducing Sophie Evans, née Coldwell, as she embarks on her first triathlon in over 20 months, explains how she’s juggling schedules with her pro runner husband, and talks openly about ‘that’ Paris team decision…
The last time we saw Sophie Coldwell, as was, in a tri-suit was at her first T100, in London, where she placed seventh. That was back in July 2024, the veteran short-course pro announcing soon after that she was pregnant with her first child to husband Tom Evans, the pro ultrarunner. The 2023 Yokohama WTCS winner had jumped at the 100k wildcard opportunity after failing to make the British team for the Paris Olympics. After losing her appeal, Coldwell almost stepped away from the sport entirely.
Twenty months on, and with baby Phoebe turning one in May, Sophie Evans is now poised to return to the sport that she first fell in love with when she was just eight-years-old. Alongside her long-time coach, Adam Elliott (who also coaches Alex Yee out of Loughborough), Sophie has had to completely reassess how they approach training and life as part of a two-athlete household with a baby in tow.
So here, as she lines up for her long-awaited comeback, Evans reflects on the decision that rocked her career, rebuilding her body, and rediscovering her competitive fire…
220: From a physical point of view, has your return to full-time training surprised you in any way?
Sophie Evans: I ended up having an emergency c-section, so I thought it was going to be a bit easier at the start and it really wasn’t. The first eight to 12 weeks I felt like, ‘wow, I’m never gonna get back to doing anything’. And then after that period, you start to see these massive gains and you’re just like, ‘muscle memory really is a thing!’. You spend your whole career chasing half a percent and all of a sudden you’re like, ‘I’ve found 10 watts on the bike!’.
Progression has definitely slowed down now – I’m 31 now, you’re not gonna make these huge gains anymore – but it is still progression. Swimming and biking have definitely been the easiest to come back – I wouldn’t say I’m in peak shape, but I’m definitely swimming and riding well. Running is just going to take time, which is a bit frustrating as it took me a long time to run for world series podiums. I’m not running bad, it’s just not where it needs to be. But on the whole, I’m really pleased.
220: Mentally, how has motherhood changed your approach to training and racing?
SE: It’s made me appreciate triathlon a lot more. The headspace I was in before Phoebe… I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do triathlon anymore. I didn’t know if I wanted to come back to it in any capacity. And it probably wasn’t until the January, February [2025] when everyone was getting ready to race and I was like, ‘I actually do miss this’.
I do have this overriding feeling of gratitude to be in this position where a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into my recovery. So I don’t want to put pressure on myself, but I do want to seize this opportunity. If you’d have asked me two years ago, triathlon was the be all and end all in my life. But then everything happened with the Olympics and I wasn’t in a great place.
Whereas now, I hope it doesn’t, but if I was in that situation again for another Olympic cycle, I now have something bigger in my life. Phoebe is everything to me. Triathlon is a huge part of my life – I go training, but then I come home to something very special. And I think that’s just changed my perspective on a lot of things, really.
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220: You’ve spoken about ‘mum guilt’ while out training, has that eased at all?
SE: It is definitely easing from a day-to-day training point of view. We are very lucky as a household, because we don’t have normal jobs so we actually get to see Phoebe a lot of the time.
That being said, a couple of days ago, Tom and I were having a discussion about whether we’re all going out to [the WTCS] Abu Dhabi* or just me. And I got really upset, I just felt very overwhelmed about the whole situation – do we put her on a plane and drag her over to Abu Dhabi for five days because you don’t want to leave her? Part of me feels selfish for saying ‘I’d actually really appreciate it if you and Phoebe could come as well’, because I haven’t left her overnight yet. Then the other part of me is saying, ‘no Sophie, you’re going to have to do it at some point’. But we’ve decided we’re all going to Abu Dhabi!
(*Since this interview took place, World Triathlon announced that WTCS Abu Dhabi has been postponed to a later date due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.)
220: Have you spoken to your fellow athlete mums about navigating this?
SE: Oh yes! For Jess [Learmonth], Freddy comes to most of the things that she does. And then for Vicky [Holland], it was a mix depending if [Vicky’s husband] Rhys [Davey] was a coach at the race or not. So yeah, it’s a work in progress for us!
220: Do you feel the sport is more supportive of athletes returning after pregnancy now?
SE: The perception of having a baby and then returning to the sport has massively changed. If you’d said you were planning on doing that five years ago, people would’ve said ‘surely you have a baby at the end of your career?’. And because people’s perception has changed, more women have had babies mid-career and have paved the way for other women.
Just within British Triathlon, look at what Jess and Vicky have done in recent years – Jess is getting on T100 podiums and Vicky was fourth at the 2024 grand final, which, for me, was really inspiring. And there’s never been any question asked about funding, and I’ve had new brands come on board to support me – Wyn Republic and Precision Hydration.
220: So the Lanzarote world cup [14 March] will be your first race back – what would a successful race there look like for you?
SE: I think on a very basic level, just delivering something, to get the ball rolling is all I can really ask for. I’ve never had this long out of racing, never had major abdominal surgery, never grown a human, never fed a human, never dealt with training with all those things. So it’ll be standing on that start line and delivering what I can on the day. I am probably going to screw up a transition!
[Sophie would go on to finish fifth in a time of 01:02:42 – an incredible first race performance back.]
220: Do you have a rough race schedule in place for the year?
SE: I would love to race three or four world series, a T100, but I’m at the mercy of a wildcard, and I would love to qualify for the 70.3 worlds, but I’m probably only going to have one or two opportunities to do that. So a lot of ifs, buts and maybes!
220: It’s been about 20 months since the controversial Olympic selection decision. What are your thoughts on that now? And what did you make of the British women’s performance in Paris?
SE: Well, 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.
But 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.
I think back on the time when it was Vicky, Non [Stanford], Jodie [Stimpson], Lucy Hall and Jess, and I think how bloody lucky I was to be a part of that. It’s a shame that we are a long way off that now.
220: So, how do you feel about going back into the federation programme?
SE: The staff that I work with day to day I love, and I honestly do believe they are a group of people that have created one of the best environments in the world. I suppose the issue comes when it’s selections for races or even Olympic selection – that’s when I will definitely be guarded. I’m definitely not just going to be like, ‘Olympics, can’t wait to go through this again!’.
That being said, I don’t know if I’m fully committed to another Olympic cycle. This year is about learning what I’m good at, what I want to do, and what works for us as a family. And I might not be good enough to go for another Olympics. If I race better over 70.3 then that’s what I’ll go and do. I’m definitely not writing anything off, but I’m also definitely not fully committed to an Olympic cycle.
220: What motivates you most at this stage of your career?
SE: It’s proving to myself, partly proving to other people, proving to Phoebe maybe, that just because I have a baby it doesn’t mean that I can’t be as good as, if not better than, I was before. And that’s probably why I don’t know whether that motivation’s going to come from chasing an Olympic start line or 70.3 medals. I don’t know what the shiny thing at the end is, but I just know that, at the moment, the thing that’s motivating me is to prove that it can be done. Prove that women can have babies, women are really fucking cool and we can do good shit.
Liz Barrett
Freelance sports journalist, copywriter and editor 
