{"id":1747770,"date":"2022-11-22T07:59:56","date_gmt":"2022-11-22T12:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1747770"},"modified":"2022-11-22T09:18:04","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T14:18:04","slug":"trans-swimmer-lia-thomas-opponent-riley-gaines-rips-ncaas-shamelessly-political-act-we-as-female-athletes-are-being-sidelined-to-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trans-swimmer-lia-thomas-opponent-riley-gaines-rips-ncaas-shamelessly-political-act-we-as-female-athletes-are-being-sidelined-to-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas Opponent Riley Gaines Rips NCAA\u2019s Shamelessly Political Act: \u201cWe as Female Athletes Are Being Sidelined to Men\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">42<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftrans-swimmer-lia-thomas-opponent-riley-gaines-rips-ncaas-shamelessly-political-act-we-as-female-athletes-are-being-sidelined-to-men%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1747770&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Gaines-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Earlier this year, former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines competed against University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the\u00a0200-yard freestyle final at the NCAA Women\u2019s Championships.<\/p>\n<p>Gaines and Thomas tied for fifth. However, Gaines was not awarded the fifth-place trophy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"a8d-pre\">During an interview with Mobile, AL radio\u2019s FM Talk 106.5, Gaines discussed how the NCAA seemed to favor Thomas given every opportunity, which she said later called \u201cpolitical.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cLike you mentioned, I swam for the University of Kentucky,\u201d she said. \u201cI just graduated this past May. But last year, in March, my senior year, the NCAA announced that Lia Thomas, I\u2019m sure a lot of people are familiar with that name, would be competing with the women. Now, Lia Thomas was a senior swimmer who swam three years on the men\u2019s side at UPenn, then switched over to the female side. So, we were all curious what this was going to look like. But when we were there, we watched Lia Thomas win a national title in the 500 [yard] freestyle, beating out American record-holders, the fastest women to ever swim by seconds, which I want to add, seconds in swimming is a lot. This is a sport that is measured down to the hundredth of a second. So, to have someone who not even the year prior was ranking in the 500s, 600s as a male then winning a national title for the females by seconds \u2013 the information is right there to see that this is blatantly wrong and unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut that next day, after Thomas won the national title, Thomas and I competed against each other in the 200-yard freestyle,\u201d Gaines continued. \u201cMiraculously enough, we actually tied. So we went the exact same time down to the hundredth of a second. Upon tying, we go behind the award\u2019s podium where the NCAA official passes out the trophies, but he looks at us and says, \u2018Hey, great job. You guys tied. We only have one trophy, so we\u2019re going to give it to Lia.\u2019 And so I look at him, and I say, \u2018OK, I understand there\u2019s only one trophy, but can I ask you why you\u2019re adamant on giving this trophy to Lia, who is a biological man?\u2019 And he looks at me and says, \u2018We\u2019re just doing this in chronological order.\u2019 And so, I further press him because I realize what is happening, and I say, \u2018OK, but what are we being chronological about?\u2019 He looks at me and says, \u2018Well, for photo purposes, Lia has to hold the trophy. You can pose with this one, but we will be taking it back, and you will not go home with one today. Lia will take this one home.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"a8d-pre\">\u201cIt was really at this point I realized that we as female athletes were not just being forced to compete with men and change with men with male genitalia,\u201d she added. \u201cIt was at this point I realized we as female athletes are being sidelined to men \u2013 just being completely put on the back burner, which goes against everything Title IX was created to protect.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>According to the former University of Kentucky swimmer, the NCAA\u2019s treatment of Thomas was \u201cshamelessly political.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s exactly what this is,\u201d Gaines said. \u201cThey used Thomas as a political pawn, and I was only further reassured of that when the NCAA nominated Thomas for NCAA Woman of the Year, which is the highest honor for female athletes in all of college. It encompasses your athletic achievements and also what you\u2019ve accomplished academically, within your community, your character, your leadership \u2013 all of these things that would make this award so special and so powerful. But they totally devalued that award. It is meaningless now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/jeff_poor\">@jeff_poor<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this year, former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines competed against University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the\u00a0200-yard freestyle final at the NCAA Women\u2019s Championships. Gaines and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1747773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1747770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1747770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1747773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1747770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1747770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1747770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}