In early December, Lia Thomas, the biological man swimming on the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team, utterly crushed the women competing with Thomas at the University of Akron’s Zippy Invitational, winning the 1650 free by a gargantuan 38 seconds ahead of the young woman finishing second, winning the 500 free by a whopping twelve seconds ahead of the woman finishing second, and winning the 200 free by a still-huge seven seconds, setting new Penn records along with meet and pool records.
Now video has surfaced of Thomas winning the 1650 free, showing how lopsided the race was with Thomas, who swam competitively for the men’s team for three years before switching to the women’s team, leaving female swimmers looking as if they were not even in the same race.
Just to show you how absurd this is. Here’s the trans swimmer “Lia” Thomas crushing all of the female competitors by 40 seconds. This is what that looks like in real time. A total farce.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) December 15, 2021
Thomas admitted in an interview with Swim Swam that before the process started of “transitioning” Thomas “had a lot of uncertainty about my future in swimming and whether or not I’d be able to keep swimming at all.” Asked about the feeling after breaking the Penn women’s swimming records, Thomas did not mention the women who wound up lagging far behind, only saying, “I’m very proud of my times and my ability to keep swimming and continue competing and they’re suited-up times and I’m happy with them and my coaches are happy with them. That’s what matters to me.”
“In terms of goals, it sort of just —pre-coming out and pre-transition I had a lot of uncertainty about my future in swimming and whether or not I’d be able to keep swimming at all,” Thomas asserted. “And so I’m just thrilled to be able to continue to swim; I love to compete and I just love to see how fast I can go.”
Transgender swimmer who used to compete as a man smashes TWO US women's records https://t.co/Q1XBXUDZ2v
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) December 7, 2021
A member of the University of Pennsylvania’s swim team told Outkick that Thomas bragged after winning the 200 freestyle at the University of Akron Zippy Invitational, “That was so easy, I was cruising,” and after winning the 500 freestyle but disappointed with the time, boasted, “At least I’m still No. 1 in the country” in front of teammates.
“Well, obviously she’s No. 1 in the country because she’s at a clear physical advantage after having gone through male puberty and getting to train with testosterone for years. Of course you’re No. 1 in the country when you’re beating a bunch of females. That’s not something to brag about,” the teammate commented.
The teammate said her fellow women teammates were crying on the Akron pool deck because they knew they had no chance of winning with Thomas competing. She said, “They feel so discouraged because no matter how much work they put in it, they’re going to lose. Usually, they can get behind the blocks and know they out-trained all their competitors and they’re going to win and give it all they’ve got. Now they’re having to go behind the blocks knowing no matter what, they do not have the chance to win. I think that it’s really getting to everyone.”
The teammate noted that after Thomas won, “Usually everyone claps, everyone is yelling and cheering when someone wins a race. Lia touched the wall and it was just silent in there. … When [Penn swimmer] Anna [Kalandadze] finished second, the crowd erupted in applause.”
“This is such a cloud over everything. A cloud in the locker room, especially the last few days because we all know of how things have changed in the last week,” she said.