He was selected for the HSBC World SVNS Series this season for a third year in a row. This followed him being selected for games in the U20 Six Nations and the World Rugby Junior Championship in 2023.
Having first taken up the whistle while a pupil at Ysgol Gyfun Rhydywaun the former Abercynon Youth outside half was taken into the WRU Referees Academy and has blossomed from there.
At the age of 19 he found himself before named among the shadow panel of officials for the panel Wales v Ireland Six Nations game at Principality Stadium in 2017. He was Assistant Referee 5 to Wayne Barnes on that occasion while studying pharmacy at Cardiff University.
Seven years on he has been named among the 23 match officials to referee the men’s sevens tournament at Olympic Games in Paris. The matches take place from 24-30 July at Stade de France.
Rugby union first appeared at the Olympic Games in Paris in 1900 and was a 15-a-side sport at those games and in 1908, 1920 and 1924. The sport then returned as a seven-a-side tournament in Rio in 2016 and in Tokyo in 2021.
There were two Welsh referees involved in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Albert Freethy and David Leyshon, while both Evans and Jones officiated at the sevens in Tokyo in 2021.
The squad of officials for Paris features representatives from 16 countries – including the first referee from Germany to appear in an Olympic rugby sevens competition in Maria Latos – with all six of World Rugby’s regional associations represented.
Five officials will attend their second Olympic Games in Paulo Duarte (Portugal), Francisco González (Uruguay), Tyler Miller (Australia), Tevita Rokovereni (Fiji) and Jordan Way (Australia), while Jérémy Rozier (France) was selected for Tokyo but had to withdraw a month before the tournament due to an ACL injury.
Duarte refereed in both the men’s and women’s competitions in Tokyo while Rokovereni officiated in the women’s event, but both have been selected for the men’s tournament in Paris.
The officials were selected following a comprehensive review of performances across the HSBC SVNS 2024 series.
World Rugby High Performance Sevens Referee Manager Paddy O’Brien said: “I’m very excited to be managing a hugely experienced and talented group of match officials to Paris 2024.
“To have so many countries represented as well as knowing every region is involved gives our management team a huge amount of satisfaction and is testament to the pathways we have had in place over the past four years.
“All those selected have worked extremely hard to ensure that when we arrive in Paris, we will have officials able to referee and officiate to the level required for such a special event.”
The full match official squad for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 is:
Men’s Tournament
Ben Breakspear (Wales / Great Britain)
Paulo Duarte (Portugal)
Gianluca Gnecchi (Italy)
Francisco González (Uruguay)
Nick Hogan (New Zealand)
AJ Jacobs (South Africa)
Reuben Keane (Australia)
Adam Leal (England / Great Britain)
Tevita Rokovereni (Fiji)
Jérémy Rozier (France)
Morné Ferreira (South Africa)
Jordan Way (Australia)
Women’s Tournament
Finlay Brown (Scotland / Great Britain)
Craig Chan (Hong Kong / China)
Talal Chaudhry (Canada)
Maggie Cogger-Orr (New Zealand)
Ano Kuwai (Japan)
Maria Latos (Germany)
Cisco Lopez (USA)
Tyler Miller (Australia)
Lavenia Rawaca (Fiji)
Kat Roche (USA)
George Selwood (England / Great Britain)
