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.

@Maerchentante

I spent a lot of time at pools, as coach and officiating at competitions. There were a few times I saw differences between the first and second. Usually in the first heat, where the slowest swimmers were placed, so you would get huge differences.

If that had been an all female race, everyone would assume doping, but as it is an MtF swimmer it's all "brave and stunning" and no one is "allowed" to complain.

Thomas is a cheat and should be treated as such.

One would have thought twenty years of large doses of a powerful anabolic steroid would count as doping, but apparently not...

@Helleofabore

Here is another swim win. Sorry it is a video in a twitter link.

twitter.com/weRessential/status/1468810186357891079?s=20

Thomas wins this race by 40 seconds apparently. It is very noticeable the advantage here. Laps ahead of second place.

That video is shocking.

But of course Lia is making a big mistake here. Lia should make sure to only just win, then no-one will notice anything amiss.

Thomas grew up in the richest, whitest, most privileged area in the city where I live. I suspect this might have something to do with Thomas's sense of entitlement.

@flygirl1983

Thomas grew up in the richest, whitest, most privileged area in the city where I live. I suspect this might have something to do with Thomas's sense of entitlement.

Not unlike Laurel Hubbard's privileged background, strange how that seems to be a feature.

It might be their undoing as well.

DD trained in central London, and many of her very international group continued on to college swim programmes: Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Brown to name but a few. Rich white privileged parents want their children to go to top colleges, and also know that one way in is via a sports programme. Swimming is an obvious choice for many as facilities are available in urban areas, and to some extent the more you train the faster you get.

My daughter just liked swimming. She found it meditational. I encouraged it through those socially difficult early teenage years as it helped to have something she was good at and a group to hang out with. Better than hanging out in Malls, or wondering why she wasn't invited to hang out in Malls, or watching YouTube videos. However in the group, there was a lot of privilege, and bodyguards and chauffeurs were far from unknown.

Thomas might be privileged and entitled, but he won't be alone. An Ivy League education is expensive. Being an All-American athlete is a big thing to have on a CV, and there is every chance that one of the girls who is denied a place in the team or who misses a title by 30 seconds, will have parents with the means and motive to challenge.

Vestofabsurdity- Indeed. I don't know that his financial upbringing was on the level of Hubbard's. However, it's not unusual for parents in this school district (American public school term) he attended to start their sons in school at 6 rather than 5 years-old so that they have a physical advantage over their classmates in high school sports.

Needmoresleep- I hope you are correct that the girls' parents have means to challenge this.

In an odd way its depressing. The US ruling elite, particularly the Democrats seem to have embraced TWAW enthusiastically not because people like Biden, Hilary Clinton or Obama necessarily believe that TW really are W, but because it does not affect them and their families. If this is what major donors want, well why not.

(And indeed in the UK. Do Starmer, Davey, Sturgeon and possibly Johnson, really believe TWAW. Its really a convenient untruth.)

And so what if those that are most affected are women in prisons, the poor and vulnerable.

However if nice girls from Manhatten, or inside the Beltway start being affected by something that is patently unfair, it takes the debate right inside the power structure.

Or at least I hope so.

@Needmoresleep

In an odd way its depressing. The US ruling elite, particularly the Democrats seem to have embraced TWAW enthusiastically not because people like Biden, Hilary Clinton or Obama necessarily believe that TW really are W, but because it does not affect them and their families. If this is what major donors want, well why not.

(And indeed in the UK. Do Starmer, Davey, Sturgeon and possibly Johnson, really believe TWAW. Its really a convenient untruth.)

And so what if those that are most affected are women in prisons, the poor and vulnerable.

However if nice girls from Manhatten, or inside the Beltway start being affected by something that is patently unfair, it takes the debate right inside the power structure.

Or at least I hope so.

This is a good observation. I should note, though, that Clinton was not TWAW (unless that's changed recently). I've never heard that she's put her head above the parapet, though

I may be wrong there. I did read something, perhaps that Chelsea is, and perhaps Hilary is silent.

@Needmoresleep

I may be wrong there. I did read something, perhaps that Chelsea is, and perhaps Hilary is silent.

You can google and find several articles about this. I'm disappointed that she seemed to back away from full-on GC, but then I was disappointed in her supporting her husband back in the 1990s, when he humiliated her, for the good of the party. As much as I think Trump is a buffoon, there's a part of me that is glad she didn't become our first female president.

I didn't mean to steer this away from the sporting topic. I hadn't thought much about the resources the women swimmers' families might have. 🙂

I reckon all of Katie Ledecky's records will be under threat. And I suspect that some coaches will be seeing if they can fill the US women's swim team for Paris with transwomen.

This is going to shred The Democrats in the mid-term Elections.

Man beats women in a sport where strength matters.

Not news to those with a brain cell.

www.foxnews.com/sports/second-female-penn-swimmer-steps-forward-describes-teammates-in-tears.amp Apologies if this duplicates something already posted. It's a Fox News story, text, not video. Has an interview with an anonymous member of the women's team. Neatly sets out NCAA women's records and Thomas's best times pre and post transition. Shocking state of affairs.

I heard Hilary Clinton being interviewed and her comments on 'woke culture' were along the lines of it being a new way of looking at equality and need time to work things out. She offered the same bland comment on TWAW. I would say, you do not destroy societal values in order to develop new thinking. You develop new thinking and persuade society that it's a good way to go. If it is a good way to go, society will follow.

My respect for her diminished after hearing her speak. She is not a feminist, though I think she would insist she is.

It sort of illustrates my point. I had added Clinton in part because I wanted three well known Democratic names who dare not say anything other than TWAW. The fact that Clinton has not actually confirmed that she believes TWAW but has also refused to say TWAnotW suggests that she knows but dare not say. Very similar to senior British politicians on the left.

It does not surprise me that Fox are following up on the Swimswam article, in the same was that the Mail did. The right do not have as many problems understanding biological reality. (Which in turn is attracting voters from the centre towards them. Can you trust a politician who does not even understand what a woman is.) Unfortunately in today's tribal politics this becomes a gotcha for TRAs. If something is in the Mail or Fox, it must be transphobic, so false.

What we need are some rich Democrat parents with girls who are swimmers, and who are forced to compete against Thomas or other self-identifiers. I have met enough swim parents in my time, and at least some can be seriously ambitious for their DC, Americans in particular take their sports seriously and set great store on winning. The clash of rights caused by self-ID needs to start affecting that demographic. Then hopefully proper debate might start.

Yes. Laurel Hubbard took medals, Olympic competing opportunities and records from young women from tiny Oceania nations, mostly of Polynesian ethnicity, I believe. No idea about the demographics of women's weightlifting in NZ itself, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that there's a strong representation from Maori women, who are also less likely to be wealthy and well connected.

I don't understand the collective paralysis affecting intellect and spine at the highest levels in sport. I am sure there has been a lot of soul searching as they come to terms with the heinous abuse and discrimination of the past against various minorities, e.g. gay men, ethnic minorities (we've all seen what's gone on in cricket in the UK just in the last few weeks). But that doesn't mean henceforth you just throw out common sense measures designed to keep players safe and to keep sport fair. Surely they know that none of it makes any sense?

every chance that one of the girls who is denied a place in the team or who misses a title by 30 seconds, will have parents with the means and motive to challenge.

It would be interesting. I see some of the girls have scholarships so I don't know if their parents will want them to keep quiet for the financial advantage of keeping those. US vipers might consider if they want to crowdfund an action.

Russia Today (I know, I know ) lays it all out succinctly.

www.rt.com/sport/542910-trans-swimmer-lia-thomas-threat-women-sport/amp/

Christ!! This is the problem. The only public analysis of this is by agencies and states that think if you have a vagina you're only suitable for Kinde Kuche Kirke, and if you're gay you should be celibate or dead. Where the hell are the ordinary people with a bit of basic common sense in power to see that the idea that a man becomes a woman by behavioural means is equally as sexist??

[quote Ekofisk]Russia Today (I know, I know ) lays it all out succinctly.

www.rt.com/sport/542910-trans-swimmer-lia-thomas-threat-women-sport/amp/[/quote]
The situation is a big open goal for Russian diplomacy/propaganda.

It puts Americans in the position of agreeing with Russia and disagreeing with Washington.

Has anyone noticed the #PennCheats on twitter? There are a lot of people noticing that likes and tweets are disappearing, and they are questioning whether twitter is trying to "manage" the situation.

This type of thing is really good for opening the issues up to the general public who may not have noticed before. There must be many alumni of universities in the US who will notice if their old universities are accused of cheating.

I had noticed it trending earlier, but have not read that Twitter was up to its old tricks.

I had noticed many people asking about it though. Lots of interest generated.

Interestingly this very balanced article is in the Guardian today - www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2021/dec/13/swimming-trans-debate-starting-to-change

Written by Sean Ingle who I know has written balanced articles previously.

If the Guardian is coming to its senses, then it must be the US branch is also having a bit of a re-think. It was always going to be sport cracking the debate wide open because fairness or lack of becomes obvious very quickly. Young female athletes will start to speak out once they see they have the backing of the public at large