Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who until 2019 was competing as a man, won two races at the University of Pennsylvania meet with Harvard University on Saturday.
Thomas finished first in the 200 freestyle and the 100 freestyle. Harvard won the overall meet, however, 187-113.
Thomas is a senior from Austin, Texas who took a year off of swimming competitively to chemically and surgically transition from being a man to appearing and competing as a woman in college swimming..
“The most heated issue in swimming this year only emerged in the last two months of the year as University of Pennsylvania senior Lia Thomas recorded the fastest times in college swimming in the 200 and 500-yard freestyle as well as an elite performance in the 1650 freestyle. Those performances caused a stir because of Thomas’ stauts as a transgender athlete. She competed for the Penn men’s team for three years before completing the required one year of ‘testosterone suppression treatment’ in order to be eligible to compete as a female,” writes Swimming World Magazine.
Thomas ranks first in the NCAA among women in the 200 and 500 freestyles this year. Thomas’ best time in the 500-yard freestyle is 4:34.06, about 10 seconds behind Katie Ledecky’s record set in 2017.
Thomas posted record-setting times that qualified her for the NCAA championships in early December. Since then, the NCAA has posted a revision to its policy on transgender athletes, but Thomas continues to be allowed to compete against biological women.
Her win on Friday in the 50-yard freestyle is nearly five seconds faster at 50.55 than Alaska Olympian Lydia Jacoby swam in 2019, when she posted a time of 56.51.
