Trans swimmer Lia Thomas wins 500 yard freestyle at NCAA championships

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Lia Thomas on Thursday night became the first transgender athlete to be crowned National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion, winning the 500 yard freestyle in Georgia – to a silent crowd. 

Thomas, 22, scorched her competitors in Atlanta with a 4 minutes 33:24 second race – much to the chagrin of some of her teammates, and to those in the stands, who remained quiet as she won. 

On the podium, some booed as she was given her medal – although others clapped politely. The second placed swimmer’s medal ceremony was, by comparison, greeted with enthusiastic applause.

‘I try to ignore it as much as I can, I try to focus on my swimming what I need to do to get ready for my races and I just try to block out everything else,’ said Thomas after the race, when asked by ESPN about the response.  

‘It means the world to be here, to be with two of my best friend and teammates and be able to compete.’ 

Thomas also roundly defeated fellow swimmers at last month’s Ivy League championships. 

The Texan, who swam for three years on the university’s men’s team before transitioning in 2019, is now the first transgender athlete to win a NCAA championship – a distinction one of Thomas’ teammates said would be dubious if achieved. 

‘It’s not necessarily an achievement in my mind,’ said one of Thomas’ teammates on UPenn’s Women’s Swim Team.

She told Fox News Digital that Thomas’s participation in D1-sanctioned women’s events has ‘completely ruined the integrity of the sport.’  

She said Thomas’ achievements while on the women’s team should be taken with a grain of salt, due to the biological advantages of being born a man.

‘It’s its own distinct category because no woman is going to be as fast as a man, and here, is just completely – we’re just throwing away the definition of a record to fit into someone else’s agenda of what it should mean to them,’ she said.

‘In reality, it makes no scientific sense to do so.’

Thomas is one of more than 300 swimmers who qualified for the NCAA championships this week, after securing a trio of records at the Ivy League Championships last month in the 100, 200, and 500 yard freestyle events.  

Thomas is set to compete in those same events at this week’s NCAA championships. 

In two of them, she ranks first in the country.

‘It’s still just disappointing to know that the NCAA lacks the courage to do the right thing,’ said Thomas’ teammate.

The NCAA leadership decided in January to amend its policies concerning trans athletes, to allow each sport’s governing body to discern whether an athlete is eligible to compete. 

Under the new guidance, Thomas was allowed by USA Swimming to compete as a woman because she has completed a year of hormone treatment. Shortly thereafter, USA Swimming announced a new requirement that transgender women must suppress their testosterone levels for three years before competing – a rule which would have seen Thomas excluded from future female competitions. 

It appeared at the time that Thomas would be barred from the NCAA championships as a result, after the NCAA’s assertion that they would abide by USA Swimming rules.

But just before last month’s Ivy League competition, the NCAA backtracked on its decision, saying that instituting a new policy in the middle of the season would be unfair – allowing Thomas to compete at that competition as well as this month’s championships.

Her continued participation in women’s competition has proved deeply divisive, with former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner – who won gold in the decathlon as Bruce Jenner – among those criticizing Thomas for swimming in women’s races.     

Earlier this month, a Sports Illustrated feature on Thomas revealed that about ‘half the team opposes her competing against other women.’

In the piece published March 3, sources close to Penn’s team said that out of 37 total members of the squad, only six to eight were ‘adamant supporters’ of the senior standout. 

Meanwhile, roughly half of the team, author Robert Sanchez wrote, ‘opposes her competing against other women.’

The remaining members ‘have steered clear of the debate,’ Sanchez noted.

One of the opposition, the unnamed student who spoke to Fox, said that while many support Thomas and her journey as a swimmer and a person, she could not stand by a decision that would put her and other women at a disadvantage.

‘I think if Lia were to break an Olympian’s record, it would cause a lot of damage to the sport and to women, and I think it would cause more people to come out [against the guidelines], people that were afraid to speak before,’ the student said. 

‘I think there’s a way where you can still be your authentic self and be who you are and swim as who you are while not competing against women,’ the student told Fox News. 

‘If you had compassion for your teammates or women at all, you would admit you have an unfair advantage and not do this to women.’

She continued: ‘I don’t understand how we could have been more supportive as a team.

‘But I will not back down, and my teammates and women across the country should not be told to back down from speaking their mind about an issue that so heavily affects them.

‘They’re being discriminated against. 

‘Women’s rights are being violated.’

‘This whole season has been about her. Everything this whole season has been about Lia, and we’ve all sacrificed everything, our entire livelihoods we’ve sacrificed. How much more should we be willing to sacrifice for Lia?

‘I’m not willing to sacrifice anything else. We’ve already sacrificed team morale and the way that people look at our team success and have the media, to that aspect, thrown in.’   

Thomas, now a senior, entered the NCAA women’s swimming and diving championships as the top seed in the 500, after dominating performances at last month’s Ivy League championships that saw her break six records at the storied competition.

The record-smashing showings saw Thomas come under national scrutiny, with many protesting decisions that allowed her to compete in women’s events.

Protesters in Atlanta flocked Thursday outside Georgia Tech University to voice their opposition towards Thomas’ participation in the current NCAA championship.

Thomas’ teammate, meanwhile, said that while she’s hopeful for this year’s swim season, she is concerned that Thomas’ continued participation has permanently damaged the sport she loves.

‘This will still haunt us in the fact that pool and team records have been broken unfairly and in an illegitimate way. 

‘We’re supposed to look up at the record board and see Lia’s name and somewhere accept that.’

She then declared: ‘It completely ruins the integrity of the school.’