Transgender swimmer Leah Thomas placed fourth in the 100-yard preliminary for the NCAA Division I Women’s Championship, swimming her best of the season to advance to the finals tonight.
Thomas, 22, swam 47.37 seconds – a personal best – just 0.10 seconds behind University of Alabama third-place swimmer Morgan Scott and one second behind University of Virginia first-place swimmer Gretchen Walsh. North Carolina State University swimmer Katherine Berkoff came in second.
Thomas barely kept up with this achievement, finishing seventh in his run in the first 50 yards before breaking into second behind event winner – both heat and overall – Walsh.
In her fifth year, Thomas entered the competition with the 10th speed record she set at the Ivy League championship in February.
Thomas endured months of backlash for what critics called him an unfair advantage. The UPenn swimmer was met with near silence after winning the 500-yard race on Thursday. She also had parents and Olympian Caitlyn Jenner, 72, among other former professional athletes such as tennis great Martina Navratilova weighing their thoughts on her ability to compete in NCAA championships. The activist also stated that Thomas was “not a woman” at the pool on Friday.
Leah Thomas, 22, (pictured Friday) swam 47.37 seconds – a personal best – in the 100-yard preliminary heat on Saturday, finishing fourth overall.
Thomas (pictured Friday) will reach the final tonight alongside Isak Hoenig, a transgender man who has not yet started hormone therapy, so he is allowed to compete as a woman. This will be the first time they have come face to face since the Ivy League championship. None of them are conducive to victory
Thomas’ NCAA championship ratings
500 Years Qualifiers – 1st place
500 Yard Final – 1st
200m Preliminaries – 2nd place
200m final – 5th place
100 Years Qualifiers – 4th place
100th Anniversary Final – Tonight
Source: NCAA.
The controversial swimmer also placed second in the 200m preliminary heat, but finished only fifth in the final.
For most of the season, Thomas remained silent, rarely speaking about the mass of criticism heaped upon her. However, after taking first place on Thursday, she told ESPN she’s trying to “ignore” the violent comments.
“I try to ignore it as much as possible, I try to focus on my swimming, what I need to do to prepare for races, and I just try to block everything else,” she said.
“It means the whole world to be here, to be with my two best friends and teammates, and to be able to compete.”
The UPenn swimmer was the first transgender athlete to win a Division I title after placing first in the 500 yards, but when the young swimmer stepped to the top of the podium she was greeted with near silence, while University runner-up Emma Veyant, a swimmer from Virginia, was met with thunderous applause, and was considered by many to be the “real” winner.
Thomas is competing within the rules as she completed a year of testosterone suppression drugs as she begins transitioning during the pandemic. However, the rules are likely to change next season when transgender women have to go through three years of testosterone suppression to compete with biological women. The NCAA ruled that it would be wrong to introduce new rules midway through the season, allowing Thomas to complete his final season.
Jenner criticized the NCAA for allowing a college student to compete.
Although she said she had “no problem” with Thomas himself, Jenner said the 22-year-old “relaxed” in the 500-yard race to avoid breaking Katie Ledecky’s record, which Thomas is nine seconds short of.
Earlier this month, Jenner also said it was “simply unfair” to allow biological boys to compete in women’s sports.
Thomas was met with harsh criticism from the start of the competition, and several high-profile figures such as 72-year-old transgender Olympian Caitlyn Jenner, who didn’t transition until 2015, and tennis star Martina Navratilova, 65, came out against Thomas. the right to compete with biological women. However, Thomas competes under current NCAA rules, which will change after this season.
Olympian Caitlyn Jenner, 72, (left) criticized the NCAA for not being “hard enough” to enforce the rules and let UPenn swimmer compete. “Just being on testosterone depressants for a year or two, whatever the rules are now, they keep changing, obviously it’s not enough.” Considered by many to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time, Martina Navratilova has spoken out against Thomas being allowed to compete against women on an equal footing.
“I don’t think biological boys should compete in women’s sports – we should be protecting women’s sports,” Caitlin said. “That’s the main thing.”
Pink News criticized the reality TV star, calling her “anti-trance” for her rhetoric regarding the UPenn swimmer. However, Jenner didn’t shy away from the controversy and responded on Twitter, writing, “No, I just had the guts to stand up for women and girls in sports,” she wrote.
Another famous athlete, Martina Navratilova, who is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, spoke out against the backdrop of Thomas’s historic victory on Thursday. She suggested that transgender women who compete against biological women put an asterisk next to their victories.
“This is not about excluding transgender women from the winners,” said the 65-year-old athlete. “But it’s about not letting them win when they weren’t even close to winning as men.”
“You’re trying to keep it as close as possible to what it would be if you were born into a female biological body,” she said.
“And even saying that, people object to the biological woman. People don’t even want to use those words.
“I do not know what else to say. Besides.
On Friday, British activist Kelly-Jay Keene, who lobbies for a ‘woke up’ policy on transgender people, went viral after an outcry in the stands during Thomas’ swimming competition where she told an awakened spectator that the 22-year-old was ‘not a woman’.
Keane, who was in the stands, is heard saying to a male viewer, “Is he just like the other girls in the pool?”
“I’m not a veterinarian, but I know what a dog is.”
Eyes clash as Thomas the Fox races ahead in the NCAA 500 Freestyle Preliminaries. pic.twitter.com/X9J5yzmozd
— Madeleine Kearns (@madeleinekearns) March 17, 2022
At the competition, signage and rowdy spectators were seen demoting Thomas’ victories and podium places. On Friday, a woman was spotted at the competition holding a “Say no to men competing as women” sign. Also on Friday, British activist Kelly-Jay Keene got into an argument with another viewer and said Thomas was “not a woman”.
The man replies: “All bodies are different.”
Keane says, “No. Are you saying he doesn’t have male organs? I am a woman, not a woman. Do you have ovaries? I am a woman, and this is not a woman.
The man retorts: “May I ask, are you a biologist?”
Keane replied, “Oh my God, don’t be ridiculous. I’m not a veterinarian, but I know what a dog is. You are relying on stupid arguments because you have no arguments.
Parents have long expressed their disagreement with the fact that Thomas participates in competitions at all, since the swimmer performed as a man for the first three years of student swimming. The swimmer, who went by the name Will before the transition, was ranked 400th in men’s swimming but skyrocketed to first place in women’s.
Also entering the 100-yard freestyle final is Yale swimmer Isak Hoenig, who identifies as a transgender male but has not started hormone therapy, making him eligible to compete in the women’s race. He swam a career best of 47.55 seconds.
Tonight, Thomas and Hoenig will meet for the first time in the final of the competition, but neither of them will win. The last time they competed against each other was at the Ivy League Championship, where Thomas defeated Hoenig.
RULES FOR TRANSGENDER ATHLETES AND WHEN THEY CAN COMPETE FOR THE GENDER THEY TRANSFER TO
Leah Thomas began taking hormone therapy back in May 2019, when she was still competing among men.
Under US swimming regulations, athletes had to have low testosterone levels for 36 months to compete in women’s competition.
This meant that Thomas would not have qualified for the NCAA Championship if they had followed the US Swimming Rules as they originally promised.
But the NCAA has said it will be allowed to compete because they refuse to accept threshold this year.
Last month, an NCAA committee said, “The subcommittee decided that making further changes at this time could have unfair and potentially detrimental consequences for schools and student-athletes intending to compete in the NCAA women’s swimming championships in 2022.”
However, it is not known what they will do next year.