Sophie Evans – formerly Coldwell – will make her triathlon return at the new Lanzarote World Cup on March 14th following the birth of her first child.
The Brit won her first World Triathlon Championship Series race in Yokohama in 2023 – the highest level of the sport – when she beat the likes of Taylor Knibb and current PTO world number one Kate Waugh.
Her most recent WTCS race saw her come seventh at Cagliari in May 2024 and two months later she then made her middle-distance debut when seventh at London T100.
Last year was a memorable one as she and husband Tom Evans became parents for the first time when she gave birth to daughter Phoebe in May. Evans then won UTMB, ultrarunning’s blue riband race, in August.
GTB heads GB line-up
A World Cup race is a notch down from WTCS events but probably because of its location and position in the calendar – just two weeks before the WTCS season starts in Abu Dhabi – the fields in Lanzarote are stacked.
Joining Evans racing for GB is her great friend Georgia Taylor-Brown, the most decorated female Olympic triathlete of all time.
GTB had what she termed “a gap year” in 2025 but managed to race 22 times in a variety of formats and disciplines and ended the campaign superbly with the fastest-ever IRONMAN 70.3 time when winning in Bahrain before coming runner-up in the T100 Grand Final in Qatar.
She will be one of the favourites in Lanzarote but is up against Laura Lindemann, who anchored Germany to that thrilling gold medal in the Mixed Team Relay at the Paris Olympics.
Not surprisingly hosts Spain have strength in numbers and plenty of quality, as do France.
And another fascinating name on the start list is Hungarian phenom Fanni Szalai, runner-up in the World Junior Championship last year, who makes her World Cup debut.
Cantero stands out
The men’s field looks similarly strong and it’s headed by Spain’s David Cantero, the 2024 U23 World Champion and a brilliant second to Matt Hauser in the WTCS Grand Final in Wollongong at the end of last year.
Up against him is 2023 World Champion Dorian Coninx of France. A broken elbow scuppered his chances of an Olympic place on home soil in Paris and he’ll be looking to get back on track here after a slightly frustrating 2025.
Another man with undoubted quality but looking to bounce back after an injury-hit year is Tim Hellwig. He’s a multiple winner at this level and was part of Germany’s winning Mixed Relay team in Paris.
