MANY elite female athletes are having to retire from top-level competition if they want to start a family because of a lack of support, says 2024 European champion and Rio Olympic medal triathlete Vicky Holland.

The former Newent Community School pupil returned to competition after giving birth to daughter Emmie in January 2023, and won European gold last year at 38 before retiring at the end of the season.

In coming back, she mirrored St Weonards mum Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne, who stormed to Olympic rowing bronze in Paris last year, despite significant hurdles following the birth of son Freddie in 2022.

Mathilda addressed a Parliamentary committee on women’s equality in sport in 2023, and said at the time she felt like she had been ‘sidelined’.

And former world champion Vicky says that while she was well-supported by British Triathlon, it appeared from conversations with other athletes that some were not so fortunate.

"I spoke to a lot of women when I came back, and who were really interested to see how I'd done it and how I was making it work," GB's first ever Olympic female triathlon medallist told BBC Sport.

"Some were encouraged but others were saying 'in our circumstances there's no way – if we want to have a family I have to retire'.

"And that feels, in this day and age, like a really brutal decision to have to make. We shouldn't have to choose, but it feels like we still do."

Holland is part of a group of athlete mums which provides a support network for new parents, set up in 2023 by GB hockey player Jo Pinner with support from the UK Institute for Sport.

"Some elite sport policies aren't up to scratch,” says Vicky. "Why are we, in 2025, still penalising women for having a family?

"Surely you want to be a leader in this field rather than being the last one on the bus and showing yourselves to being stuck in the past."

In 2023, UK Sport introduced enhanced guidance so that pregnant athletes could depend on increased and improved support and advice.

However, UK Sport has admitted a need for the guidance to be put into practice across Olympic and Paralympic sports.

"UK Sport strongly believes that raising a family and being an elite athlete should not be mutually exclusive," the statement said.

"We are therefore committed to continuing to engage with athletes and sports to make sure the guidance is implemented as robustly and comprehensively as possible."

Holland went from being ranked in the world's top 15 to outside the top 200, with only the top 55 gaining automatic entry into a race.

And she said: "It took me a long time and a lot of racing just to try and scrape together some points and then build up my ranking.

"It's almost like you've worked your whole career up to being a manager in a store and then you come back from pregnancy and you're back on basic pay and you're back down doing the checkout.”

World Triathlon has since brought in a policy for elite athletes, where women can freeze their rankings from their pregnancy until their child is two years old.

And Vicky adds: “Women should not be expected to give up their goals or ambitions in order to have a family.”