‘It’s Unfair’: NCAA Father Says It’s ‘Soul Crushing’ Watching Lia Thomas Obliterate Female Swimmers

ATLANTA, GA. — The daddy of a swimmer competing on the NCAA Ladies’s Swimming Championship described watching transgender athlete Lia Thomas dominating feminine swimmers as “unfair” and “soul crushing.”

The transgender College of Pennsylvania swimmer clocked in at 4:33:24 within the ladies’s 500 freestyle finals Thursday night, ending first forward of the College of Virginia’s Emma Weyant, a freshman.

Thomas will compete within the ladies’s 200 freestyle Friday night and the 100 freestyle on Saturday. The transgender swimmer is slated to complete second within the 200 freestyle and tenth within the 100 freestyle.

“I simply don’t suppose it’s honest,” stated the father of a swimmer from Virginia who requested to not be recognized so as to protect his daughter’s anonymity. “These younger girls have labored too arduous to be handled like that.”

The dad expressed considerations in an interview with The Each day Wire that weighing in publicly on controversy over Thomas would embroil his daughter in criticism which may endanger her future job prospects.

Whereas some onlookers cheered because the transgender athlete was introduced the winner on Thursday night, the stands additionally resonated with a refrain of boos and yells.

The Virginia dad stated that it has been “extremely apparent” from the place he has been sitting within the stands that oldsters “don’t seem like supportive of Lia Thomas.”

“It occurred a number of instances yesterday when he completed, when he touched the wall and completed,” the daddy defined. “No person clapped, actually. When the second place individual got here in, the place exploded.”

“You noticed the identical factor on the rostrum,” he added. “, all people cheered loudly for the second place finisher, the woman. And never very many individuals clapped for the champion.”

The transgender swimmer’s presence is noticeable on the pool deck — apart from the truth that Thomas stands taller than most of the swimmers, the athlete additionally clearly has male anatomy.

“Soul crushing can be not an understatement,” stated the daddy, requested the way it felt to observe Thomas win over a pool of organic ladies.

“I can have a look at swimmers and inform whether or not they’re actually good,” he stated, noting that he doesn’t imagine Thomas is exerting as a lot effort as the feminine swimmers are. “And I don’t suppose that [Thomas] is having to place out as a lot as the women are put out to compete as properly.”

“They’re going on the market doing all of it and they usually’re leaving all of it within the pool because it have been,” the daddy continued. “And I simply don’t see that that he’s having to do the identical factor.”

One constant criticism of transgender athletes in ladies’s areas has been that organic males shouldn’t be current or be altering in ladies’s locker rooms.

The Virginia dad stated he doesn’t know something firsthand about Thomas and locker rooms, however emphasised that he believes “males needs to be in a male locker room and organic females needs to be in a feminine locker room.”

“I’m not comfy with my daughter being in a locker room with male,” he stated. “I feel that’s incorrect and disgusting.”

He described the years of dedication and time that his daughter, who will compete in opposition to Thomas through the NCAA championship, has put into turning into a swimmer worthy of such a championship.

“I drove 9 hours to clap for my daughter for a bit of underneath 22 seconds,” he chuckled.

Requested if he thinks the work was price it: “Completely. Each little bit of it. She’s an incredible younger woman, and I’m excited for her future.”

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