Penn’s Lia Thomas breaks 200/500 Free records in meet with Princeton, Cornell

[Helleofabore]

USA women’s freestyle swimming records were broken this weekend!!!

To all those who keep using the ‘scale’ argument to justify inclusion of males in female sport, tell us again how it takes more than one male competing in female sport to significantly and negatively impact that sport?

I am very happy to hear your well thought out and evidenced reasoning.

swimswam.com/penns-lia-thomas-breaks-200-500-free-records-in-meet-with-princeton-cornell/

Penn’s Lia Thomas blasted the number one 200 free time and the second-fastest 500 free time in the nation on Saturday, breaking Penn program records in both events. She swept the 100-200-500 free individual events and contributed to the first-place 400 free relay in a tri-meet against Princeton and Cornell in her home pool.

Sounds wonderful until you realise that for their first three years competing in the competition, they competed as a male.

twitter.com/coachblade/status/1465517693386121217?s=21

Coach Linda Blade’s tweet says :

Well of course women’s records are being smashed!

Lia competed as male for first three years in #NCAA.

This is not right!

We need to return to #SexBasedSports!

#SexNotGender to preserve fairness for female athletes.

OK I see what you mean. Most stories about transition seem to have a heartwarming moment where the coach offers the athlete their pick of sex categories and they choose the target sex like Cinderella or something.

As always, as a PP said, the woman now not in the swim team is invisible.

OK I see what you mean

Thank you for saying that, like yourself I’ve absolutely no issue whatsoever with Iszac on the female team

There is an awful lot of insistence that Iszac hasn't started taking testosterone, but is there testing at University swim meets? And is Iszac taking any other drugs or has Iszac had treatment of any kind in the past? There seems to be so little consistency around the whole thing that I'm cynical about everything.

In addition, it does seem very strange that Lia did win a couple of races, but only just, and one of the races Lia lost was a relay.

So really Lia still won all Lia's individual races apart from one.

Still unfair.

I too have no issue with Iszac on the female team if Iszac has not had any medical treatment. But if Iszac was on puberty blockers/anything else in the past, even if Iszac isn't on testosterone now, I question the fairness.

Wasn't there another thread on this, started last night? Has it gone?

This was the other thread. The deletion message says that it's been taken down because it was a duplicate. There were some links on that thread to some recent results which aren't on here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4448640-Lia-Thomas-beaten-by-another-transgender-swimmer

Have the times been reported?

Interestingly twitter informs me (so take it with a pinch of salt) that Lia has already qualified for "the Championship" (whatever that is) so the results from yesterday are irrelevant to progression.

The implication is that Lia can afford to be selective in what races need to be won. The phrase used was "pulling a Hubbard".

You really couldn't make it up.

334bu, here's a thread about times. Apparently 5 seconds slower than last week and 7 seconds slower than at an earlier meet, over 200 yards.

twitter.com/TerryBrennan211/status/1479889392575696905

I posted this information on the previous thread which was deleted, so will post it again here, as it's important. I googled and found the actual race times for the different events, and the bottom line is that LIA THOMAS IS NOW GOING SLOWER.

For the meet on 20th November, in which Lia Thomas broke US women's records and made all the headlines, the times for Lia Thomas were:
100 yard: 49.42 (approx 1 second ahead of second place)
200 yard: 1.43.47 (approx 6 seconds ahead of second place)
500 yard: 4.35.06 (approx 18 seconds ahead of second place)

For the meet on 8th January, when Lia Thomas was beaten by Iszac Henig in some events, the times for Thomas are slower:
100 yard: 52.84 (Henig's time = 49.75)
200 yard: 1.48.73
500 yard: 4.57.20

Henig's winning times at the Jan 8th meet were slower than Thomas' times at the Nov 20th meet. So it is NOT the case that Henig is faster than Thomas.

Henig is female, performing at top female level. Lia Thomas's best times out-perform all women, but Lia Thomas's times in the most recent meet were significantly lower than Lia Thomas' times at the previous meet.

Summary: No female swimmer is faster than Lia Thomas. LIA THOMAS HAS SLOWED DOWN. Presumably on purpose.

I found the full results on the websites below, by clicking on the "full results" link

swimswam.com/penns-lia-thomas-breaks-200-500-free-records-in-meet-with-princeton-cornell/

swimswam.com/yale-dominates-ivy-league-double-dual-meet-with-penn-and-dartmouth/

If you wanted to be charitable, then being off your PBs could be due to where you are in the training cycle - so if in heavy training you could be off your times. The NCAA Champs are in mid March, so I’d expect training to be flat out now and then looking to taper for the Champs.

Those 500 yard times are shocking - 22 seconds slower and still a win.

Thanks Sharksarecool.

I have discovered a new word today though.

‘Hubbarded’.

It does seem apt.

Of course, that’s if you’re feeling charitable.

If Thomas has already qualified for the NCAA Champs then some women’s races where you can cruise and get beaten might be a neat way of taking the heat off you.

Link to the full results here:

swimswam.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/penn_yale_darmouth.pdf

He's slowing down because advancing womanliness is becoming embedded in his gendocrine system.

“gendocrine” system

😂😂

Lia took a dive ! OK...I'll see myself out

So are transmen allowed to take testosterone and compete?

If transmen are men why are they on the women's team?

But Henig is supposedly not on testosterone yet. So still eligible to compete as a female.

Henig has had a double mastectomy and is photographed wearing just swimming trunks and with 'top surgery' scars in photos online. In a sport where competitors shave their body hair and wear smaller swimsuits to reduce drag, a flatter chest would, presumably, make a swimmer more streamlined moving through the water.

I get the argument about the mastectomy and water resistance. But how do you deal with a woman who has had a double mastectomy for life saving purposes not gender identity. It would be a difficult policy to get right I would think.

The double mastectomy is less the issue than the blatant hypocrisy. If TWAW and TMAM then Henig should be on the male team. Obviously they are female and should be on the female team - or just a leisure swimmer if they want to take steroids.

I think as long as Henig has had no pharmaceutical intervention at all then Henig should be allowed to swim in the women's category.

I do worry about the "not starting testosterone yet" bit of the story, as I'm sure there are many medical interventions short of testosterone, and I'm not sure how f to m "puberty blocker" type drugs could enhance (or even reduce) performance. I don't know enough about it to change my opinion of females in women's category, males in men's, full stop.

Added to which Henig isn't outside the norm for women's college swimming, times wise, whereas Thomas obviously is.