A teammate of a transgender college swimmer has spoken out on the controversy surrounding her colleague and accused their coach of prioritizing victory over fairness.
Lia Thomas currently competes for Penn State but had previously featured in the male NCAA Division I competition swim team as Will for three years at the university.
As Lia, Thomas has smashed a string of records with three broken at the Zippy Invitational Event in Akron, Ohio, this past weekend alone.
In the 1,650-yard freestyle, Thomas set a competition record with a 15:59.71 time that was 38 seconds faster than her teammate Anna Kalandadze.
In the 500-yard freestyle and 200-yard freestyles, she broke US records with times of 4:34.06 and 1:41.93 respectively.
Thomas’ very presence in female competitions has caused outrage and sparked widespread debate.
Providing fuel to those against her participation, one of her colleagues has claimed that team support for Thomas is “very fake” with their coach Mike Schnur appearing to prioritize victory above fairness.
“Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this,” remarked the girl to Outkick, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Our coach just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do.”
While Thomas has separately claimed that her teammates and coaches have been “unbelievably supportive since the beginning” with Schnur “one of my biggest supporters and allies in this process since day one”, the teammate has stated that the support from colleagues is put on.
Hats off to Lia Thomas (right) for breaking all these records in women's swimming competitions. I just wish we knew what her secret was so every athlete could be as talented. #UPennpic.twitter.com/QgloR405b9
“When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing’. It’s very fake,” she revealed.
“The Ivy League is not a fast league for swimming, so that’s why it’s particularly ridiculous that we could potentially have an NCAA champion. That’s unheard of coming from the Ivy League,” she continued, as per Thomas’ achievements.
“On paper, if Lia Thomas gets back down to Will Thomas’ best times, those numbers are female world records. Faster than all the times [seven-time Olympic champion swimmer] Katie Ledecky went in college. Faster than any other Olympian you can think of. His times in three events are [female] world records.”
Perhaps with an eye on Paris 2024, Thomas welcomed new IOC guidelines tipped to be brought in after February’s Winter Olympics in her own interview on Thursday.
“I think the guidelines they set forward are very good and do a very good job of promoting inclusivity while keeping competitional integrity going,” she said of the proposals, which suggest it should not be presumed trans women have automatic advantages over other females.
“Each sport basically has to come up with eligibility criteria for what constitutes an unfair advantage in that sport,” Thomas explained.
“Everybody is able to compete in the category they’re most comfortable with unless there’s a proven unfair advantage that they have.”
UPenn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas says it's completely fair to compete against women:
“Everybody is able to compete in the category they’re most comfortable with unless there’s a proven unfair advantage that they have.” pic.twitter.com/JGzeUZ0SnG
At present, NCAA rules dictate that any athlete who wishes to switch from male to female competition needs to have completed a least a year’s worth of testosterone suppression to participate.
But according to the unnamed teammate, “one year doesn’t mean anything”.
“What about the years of puberty as a male, the male growth you went through as a man?” she asked.
“There are a bunch of comments on the internet about how, ‘Oh, these girls are just letting this happen. They should just boycott or protest.’
Source: Penn swimmers were 'strongly advised' by school administration to avoid talking to the media & told during a meeting that it's a non-negotiable, Lia Thomas will be swimming for Penn. https://t.co/IPpUhI2EP3
“At the end of the day, it’s an individual sport. If we protest it, we’re only hurting ourselves because we’re going to miss out on all that we’ve been working for,” it was stressed.
“When I have kids, I kinda hope they’re all boys because if I have any girls that want to play sports in college, good luck. [Their rivals] are all going to be biological men saying that they’re women.
“Right now we have one, but what if we had three on the team? There’d be three less girls competing,” it was concluded.
Firuza Sharipova takes on one of the most feared faces in women’s boxing this weekend as she steps into the ring with undefeated Irish star Katie Taylor – but the Kazakh fighter is not daunted by the challenge.
Undisputed women’s lightweight champion Taylor puts her titles on the line against mandatory WBA challenger Sharipova at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool on Saturday night, with the Irish Olympic gold medalist heavily fancied by the bookmakers to extend her unblemished professional record to 20-0.
But despite her underdog status, the 27-year-old Sharipova is not unfamiliar with breaking the mold and defying expectations.
The Kazakh pugilist was the first woman to turn professional in her country, and following a baptism of fire against Russia’s Sofya Ochigava in her first fight in 2016 – which ended in a unanimous decision defeat – Sharipova has since reeled off an impressive 14 straight victories.
The Kazakh puncher captured the Women’s International Boxing Association (WIBA) world lightweight title in just her eighth pro outing in 2017, before adding the vacant IBO and WBC silver super feather titles to her collection in the same year.
However, she returned the following August to claim the vacant IBA world female super lightweight title in a dominant victory over Tanzania’s Happy Daudi.
She’s since notched three more victories – including a second-round TKO of Russia’s Liubov Beliakova in September – to set up her shot at Taylor.
According to Sharipova, she has a secret weapon heading into the contest thanks to former foe Ochigava.
Ochigava was an opponent for Taylor in the amateur ranks, and the Irishwoman prevailed in their biggest bout when they battled for Olympic gold in London in 2012.
Sharipova has called on Ochigava during her training to plot the downfall of the 35-year-old Taylor.
“I am eight years younger than Katie Taylor, I am stronger than her and Sofya Ochigava helped me to prepare for this fight,” Sharipova said.
“No one else knows how to fight Taylor like Sofya Ochigava. Therefore, not only I, Firuza Sharipova, will be in the ring against Taylor, but the intelligence of Sofya Ochigava, who has preparedme very well for this fight, will be with me.
“Sofya has been in my camp from the very beginning, has passed on all her knowledge to me and has done her best to help me defeat Katie Taylor.”
Taylor was feted as a national hero for her Olympic success in London, but Sharipova attempted to needle her opponent with claims that she was an undeserving gold medalist.
“I watched their fight in the final of the Olympic Games and I’m sure that the judges helped Taylor. Sofya knocked her down, which wasn’t counted. Sofya was better in the fight, she won it,” Sharipova said.
“Taylor is usually not afraid of anyone, but in that final fight, Sofya saw fear in her eyes. Even now, Taylor refuses to fight Sofya.”
Saturday night will be the first time Sharipova has fought outside of her homeland or Russia since her second professional bout back in 2016.
The photogenic fight queen – who was married to fellow boxer Denis Rybak before their divorce in 2017 – is among the most popular female sports stars in her homeland and was once voted her nation’s sexiest athlete in a poll.
Bizarre betting markets even opened on whether Sharipova could one day take on the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the judo mat, or pose nude for Playboy.
“Of course I would love to conduct a joint training session with Vladimir Putin,” Sharipova told RT Sport back in 2019.
“It wouldn’t be full contact or hard sparring. It would be a friendly joint training session and not full blooded in any way.
“As for the Playboy shoot – I’d be against taking part in any nude photo shoots! If the photos are decent and beautiful, the I will be ok with that. Otherwise no,” said Sharipova.
While Playboy is off the cards, it will certainly be maximum exposure for the Kazakh ring queen this weekend in Liverpool as she aims to pull off what would be one of the biggest upsets women’s boxing has ever seen.
Norway’s Magnus Carlsen retained his World Chess Championship title with victory over Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia in Game 11 to take an unassailable 7.5-3.5 lead in their match in Dubai.
Heading into Friday’s game with a big lead in their best-of-14 showdown, Carlsen wrapped up the title after another error-strewn performance from the challenger.
The pair were unable to be separated after the first five games of their €2 million ($2.26 million) tussle before the Norwegian made a breakthrough in an epic Game 6 which lasted 7 hours and 45 minutes and was the longest ever at the World Championships.
That appeared to shatter Nepomniachtchi’s resolve and although he picked up two subsequent draws, the initiative had been firmly surrendered to Carlsen as the reigning champion also won Games 8 and 9.
Playing as white, ‘Nepo’ also blundered in Game 11 on Friday with a misguided attack on Carlsen’s rook on move 23, paving the way for his resignation.
“It’s hard to feel that great joy when the situation was so comfortable to begin with, but I’m happy with a very good performance overall,”said Carlsen.
“Overall I’m happy with my play, very proud of my effort in the sixth game, and that sort of laid the foundation for everything.
“The final score is probably a bit more lopsided than it could have been, but that’s the way I think some of the other matches also could have gone if I had gotten a lead.”
Speaking on his defeat, Nepomniachtchi cited the “tension” of the occasion but suggested that was not an excuse.
“Of course it’s really tense and it’s a little more tense than I expected,” said the Russian.
“But I guess anyway the tension is not a reason to overlook some simple things you would never overlook in a blitz game.
“What can I say? I should find out why it did happen and improve.”
g3 on move 23 was a blunder from Nepo. Exchange sacrifice from Magnus losing rook (dex3 taking knight) brought queen in front of open white king. Feel Nepo lost his steam after losing Game 6 which was the best game of the World Chess Championship
Some observers were left disappointed with the ease at which Carlsen had ultimately seen off the challenge from his Russian opponent.
“The dominating story is blunder after blunder [from Nepomniachtchi]. It just feels like it was gift wrapped to Magnus and that’s not how I ever want to remember any sort of chess event,” said Grand Master and commentator Robert Hess as he watched on critically.
Elsewhere on a Chess24 broadcast, Grandmaster Anish Giri claimed that Nepomniachtchi “wants to lose” to be put out of his misery.
“It just feels like it was gift wrapped to Magnus and that's not how I ever want to remember any sort of chess event.” – @GM_Hess
Carlsen’s victory is the fourth successful defense of the title he has held since 2013.
The Norwegian Grand Master, 31, is widely viewed as one the of greatest ever to play the game and has held the world number one ranking since 2011.
Despite his ranking of number five in the world, there were hopes that Nepomniachtchi – playing under the banner of the Russian Chess Federation due to WADA sanctions – could challenge his poster-boy rival.
A two-time Russian champion, Nepomniachtchi, 31, sparred with Carlsen at youth level and defeated him at the 2011 Tata Steel tournament and the 2017 London Chess Classic.
This time, though, their showdown ended in a dominant win for Carlsen, who claimed the lion’s share of the €2 million prize money on offer.
Carlsen celebrated his victory by tweeting an image of late NBA star Kobe Bryant holding up five fingers to signify his five titles – the same number of victories the Norwegian now owns in world championship deciders.
Known as the ‘Venezuelan Vixen’, Julianna Pena is set for the biggest opportunity of her life at UFC 269. But is there more to her than meets the eye? Or is she just an attention-seeking ‘clown’, as Amanda Nunes suggested?
This weekend in Las Vegas, Pena takes on the all-conquering Brazilian for her bantamweight crown.
Whatever the outcome in the co-headline bout topped by Charles Oliveira’s first lightweight title defense against Dustin Poirier, the 32-year-old Pena has come a long way.
Born and raised in a “little, tiny garage” in Spokane, Washington, the youngest of four siblings with a Mexican mother and Venezuelan father, hence her nickname, made the switch to MMA after first joining a cardio kickboxing class to lose weight and channel her aggression in her early 20s.
Talking to BBC Sport in fight week, she spoke of fighting in bar brawls with “dudes in an alley at work” and being run over in 2012, which left her unconscious and her “nose smashed in”.
Crafted under the SikJitsu and Valle Flow Striking banners, big expectations were made of the mother of one when she became the first female winner of The Ultimate Fighter by clinching the reality show competition’s 18th edition in 2013.
Simple math tells us that Pena has waited over eight years for a shot at glory, with an average of less than a bout per year after the first-round TKO of Jessica Rakoczy which earned her a contract with Dana White’s elite promotion.
Indeed, as one might presume, the road has been rocky on the way to facing a foe who many consider the greatest female combatant of all time in Nunes.
For starters, Pena had to wait almost a year and a half from her TUF win until finally putting on the gloves again to take on Milana Dudieva in 2015.
Having been expected to face future strawweight champion Jessica Andrade in March of 2014, Pena suffered a right knee injury and damaged her ACL, MCL, LCL, and meniscus while grappling in training and required surgery and rehabilitation that kept her out of action for the whole of that year.
From 2015 to mid-2016, Pena went on a four-fight win streak to improve to 8-2 but then met her match in current flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, who finished her by a second-round armbar submission in early 2017.
Announcing an indefinite hiatus later that year to start a family with daughter Grace born in 2018, Pena returned to her profession in July 2019 after a two-and-a-half-year break to defeat the first-ever flyweight women’s champion Nicco Montano by unanimous decision.
Given that there was then a loss to Germaine de Randamie before her last win in January against Sarah McMann, the jury is still out on Pena.
“Sara McMann almost beat her. Sara McMann gave up in the fight. If she didn’t give up, she would have beat Julianna. But I beat Sara McMann years ago,” Nunes has been quick to point out.
At a press event to promote their long-awaited meeting delayed by Nunes’ battle with Covid, the Brazilian ripped into her loudmouth foe by calling her “delusional” and a “clown” who “wants attention”.
“That’s it,” Nunes concluded.
But is it? Or is there more to Pena than meets the eye, and does she actually have a chance against ‘The Lioness’?
With her inactivity and a 10-4 record, it is difficult to gauge what Pena has, or not. Coming off the back of two defeats in inferior promotions, it beggars belief as to how she got onto the Ultimate Fighter in the first place, never mind win it.
But win the competition she did, in thrilling fashion, with her rear-naked choke finish of veteran and top-ten ranked Shayna Baszler considered the biggest upset of the season on the way to her final demolishing of Rakoczy.
Only topped twice in the UFC, those defeats have come to elite competition in Shevchenko, herself challenging Nunes in the GOAT conversation, and De Randamie who took Nunes all five rounds to the cards in one of her most grueling fights in recent memory while rocked in the second.
“I feel like a lot of people are sleeping on me and they think I’m a sacrificial lamb but I definitely think that, you know, I know that I’m definitely not and everyone loves an underdog,” Pena insisted to TMZ.
There are accusations that Pena has merely earned her title shot by trash talking, claiming that Nunes has been “ducking” her until White finally forced them to meet to settle a grudge.
Breaking character from the smiley, laid-back individual typical of her home state of Bahia in the northeast of Brazil, Nunes is clearly riled this time and this could work to her foe’s advantage if her plan is to merely go out and knock Pena’s head off.
“I’m always focusing and I know I have 25 minutes to finish her. I just have to take my time and pick the shots at the right times and finish the fight. No matter what she shows up with Saturday night, I’m going to have the answers and I will finish her,” Nunes has vowed to counter such assumptions.
Pena has cited her wrestling as giving her the edge over Nunes, who she perceives to be weak on the ground, and said that the clash is a “perfect style match-up”.
But to Yahoo Sports, Nunes has claimed that “nothing” concerns her about her opponent while the “delusional” insult came about from Pena having been finished on the mat herself in two of her last four outings.
“Everything about her game, I’ve seen before. I’ve beat the most tough girls many times, even her training partner, best friend. It’s the same style. When I see Miesha Tate fight, you see Julianna Pena fight. They’re pretty much the same fighter,” Nunes claimed.
“Julianna has all the holes where I can finish her on the floor as well,” Nunes also said at the press event.
“Germaine finished her. Germaine de Randamie is a striker and she finished Julianna Pena [on the ground]. I feel like my game is way above all those girls she fought.
“We’re going to see what’s going to happen. I just need a mistake from her. In striking, in the floor, whatever she brings up, I’m going to have the answers and I’m going to finish the fight,” she guaranteed.
Bad blood aside, though, there is some mutual respect between the two. Pena admitted she is “inspired” by Nunes, to which Nunes conceded “she’s definitely a very good fighter” in return.
Yet as Pena quipped while they traded barbs this week, for all their bravado and predictions one of the women is “going to be dead wrong”.
“We will see,” she finished, perfectly setting up a fiery showdown on Saturday night.
Former Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville has urged his social media followers to “go for it” after calling for a protest against the under-fire government of Boris Johnson later this month.
Popular TV pundit Neville is a frequent critic of Johnson and the Conservative government, and recently unloaded on the prime minister amid the investigation into a potential breach of lockdown rules at a Downing Street party last year.
Neville has also criticized the latest round of Covid restrictions in England, suggesting they were merely an attempt to distract attention as Johnson faces questions over his position.
After issuing a rant to his 4.9 million Twitter followers, Neville set up a vote asking if they would join him for a protest against “the scoundrel [Johnson] and his disciples.”
While the tweet racked up over 15,000 ‘likes’ within a few hours of being posted, there were some who urged caution.
“Think about this Gary, there are ways to protest that don’t involve spreading the virus and could be organised by someone with a huge social media following with very little effort,” wrote one person, adding: “Come on now, get your thinking hat on.”
“I know, I’ll call for a superspreader event, help overwhelm the NHS. Oh, by the way someone organise it for me so I don’t get my hands dirty,” scorned another.
Some claimed they could assist, with one popular reply reading: “Again, Gary, get in touch and we can get this done.”
There are a host of Premier League matches scheduled for December 18, including Manchester United against Brighton, while the club Neville co-owns, Salford FC, are also in action – meaning he would need to put football aside for the day if he is serious about his anti-government march.
