On March 16, NCAA Division I swimming and diving began at Collegiate Women’s Swimming and Diving. There has been much controversy about Lia Thomas, who was the first transgender NCAA Division I swimming champion.
Thomas is a Penn student-athlete and competed as a diver on the University of Pennsylvania’s Men’s Swimming and Diving team for three consecutive years. Thomas also competed as a man. PostAlthough he had some decent performances, he wasn’t qualified to compete in the NCAA Division I Championships for men.
All of the NCAA exams have been passed. rulesThomas Broken recordsThis season was the Ivy League women’s basketball team’s. Thomas actually finished just slightly behind Katie Ledecky who is one of our greatest female swimmers.
Katie Ledecky was an Olympian who swam at the The fastest recorded timeIn the 500-yard freestyle for women at 4:24.06 (current NCAA, American, US Open) Thomas was victorious in the 500-yard freestyle race with an impressive time of 4:33.24,The second place finisher was a full second ahead. She is now the 16th fastest female swimmer in this event.
An athlete’s success largely hinges on whether or not she has talent—both raw and earned. While many athletes believe that they can trust the process, there is a feeling in college swimming where the process seems to have broken down.
USA Swimming released new standards just weeks before the championships for transitioning swimmers. transgender athletes would have to show a concentration of testosterone below 5 nmol/L for a continuous period of 36 months and provide “evidence that the prior physical development of the athlete as a male…does not give the athlete a competitive advantage over the athlete’s cisgender female competitors.”NCAA Recognized ““There is a significant competitive gap between the male and the female genders and it presents disadvantages in head-to-head elite competition.” determinedThis would make it unfair to students and schools that are preparing to enter the NCAA Women’s Swimming Championships in 2022. new standardsThomas would be proud Not able to meet).
A greater acceptance of transgender people in law and society has made a difference. This allows them to be authentic and live their lives freely. Thomas was brave despite the vitriol she faced for participating in a sport that the ruling body had declared eligible. However, elite sports are not balanced. They lack respect for gender and have no access to neutral bathrooms. Thomas’ success is creating a crisis within women’s athletics, which has long been an area of pride for elite female athletes in spite of the fact they know they can’t compete with men.
The editor-in-chief of Swimming World MagazineJohn Lohn SubmittedThomas is not allowed to participate in the Olympics because of his transphobia. Protecting one athlete from backlash is a form of transphobia. Many other athletes You were not allowed to compete for the highest spot on this podium. These are Around 15,000American female college swimmers but Only 1.8%They are not even eligible to compete at the NCAA Division I finals.
Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle, framesYou can best summarize it as “We didn’t create separate leagues for the special femininity of female athletes. If anything, women’s athletics was supposed break down these divisions.” This is an acknowledgement of biology. Women’s sports exist because of the biological limitation that women are unable to compete against men. Separating female athletes from male competitors gave women the opportunity to showcase their incredible talent in a pool or on the field.
I was a NCAA Division I swimmer. I’ve tried to calculate how much total time I spent swimming or training, and it’s in the ballpark of 21,900 hours—2 and a half years of my life.Lia Thomas spent most of her training hours with the benefit of higher muscle density and greater bone mass. HerzGet deeper lung capacity. There can be only three of you on the podium at the end. It is not about luck or biology, but skill and persistence.
However, when Lia Thomas took the lead in what was a winning gold medal performance, I could not help but observe how her competitors, who had trained as hard as she did and for as long as they did, seemed defeated. It is likely that more young ladies will not choose to wear their matching swimsuits, goggles and caps when diving into cold pools each day. They lack confidence and don’t know what the rules are.