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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would issue a proclamation recognizing the recent NCAA women’s 500-yard freestyle event as the winner in place of transgender athlete Leah Thomas.
“We’re going to announce that Emma [Weyant] “Best female swimmer” in last week’s 500-yard freestyle, DeSantis said Tuesday. “She deserved it and we need to stop allowing organizations like the NCAA to perpetuate fraud in society.”
Emma Veyant, an Olympic medalist and Florida native attending the University of Virginia, lost 1.75 seconds to Thomas in the 500-yard freestyle last Thursday. She posted a time of 4:34.99, trailing Thomas in the final 100 yards of the 500 m freestyle. According to the WFLA, it was the fastest time of Weyant’s career.
Twitter explodes as trans swimmer Leah Thomas wins national title: ‘Slap women and girls’
Thomas, a swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, went on to become the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship.
Leah Thomas of the Pennsylvania Quakers after winning the 500m freestyle triathlon against the Yale Bulldogs and Dartmouth Big Green at Sheerr Pool on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania on January 8, 2022 in Philadelphia, PA. (Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
“If you look at what the NCAA did by allowing mostly men to compete in women’s track and field, and in this case swimming… you had the number one woman who finished from Sarasota, Emma Weyent. She won the silver medal, she was the absolute superstar in her entire career,” DeSantis said.
LIA THOMAS WINS ATLANTA WOMEN’S NCAA SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIP GATHER PROTESTORS
FILE – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the launch of a monoclonal antibody site Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, in Pembroke Pines, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier) (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
“To compete at this level is very, very difficult. And you can’t just get out of bed and do it. are basically making efforts to destroy women’s athletics. They are trying to undermine the integrity of the competition by appointing someone else as the women’s champion, and we think that is wrong,” he continued.
EMMA WAYANT: SECOND PLACE IN NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP RACING LIA THOMAS WINS AN OLYMPIC MEDAL IN 2021
Emma Veyant of Team USA poses with the silver medal in the women’s 400m individual medley final on day two of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics at the Tokyo Aquatics Center on July 25, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
Thomas, who previously competed for the men’s team before moving to the women’s team in 2019, was heavily criticized on Twitter after the race, with some saying they did not recognize Thomas as the true winner.
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“Applause to Emma Weyant, California State University swimmer, who finished second in the 500m freestyle tonight behind Leah Thomas. The second is the new first,” wrote former Department of Education spokeswoman Angela Morabito.
Polina Dedage of Fox News and Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.