This week the Ivy League Conference in the United States held their women’s swimming championship. Normally that would mean very little in New Zealand. Finding the fastest swimmers in a competition of elite American universities is not of great importance here. But things have changed. This year Penn University have a swimmer on their team who was born male, grew up as male, competed in swimming as a successful male and then decided he wanted to be a female and compete as a member of the Penn university women’s team. His, her name is Lia Thomas.

She has successfully undergone the hormone therapy aimed at reducing her testosterone and other measures to female levels. She is however still anatomically male. She has not had male conversion operations. The stories I have read of her wandering naked around the female changing rooms are disgusting. What a freak show Penn, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth have become. No swimming scholarship to a posh university is worth that perversion.

However, it seems the Penn coach, Mike Schnur, is so obsessed with winning that any obscenity is fair play. And of course, fair play is exactly what the presence of Lia Thomas on the Penn Team is not. She had 20 years of male strength development that will not be washed away by 20 months of female therapy. Schnur and Thomas and the Penn Athletic Department are cheating on sport in general and the female gender in particular. Winning is not that important.

No one is saying Lia Thomas cannot be a heart surgeon, or a Supreme Court judge, or, as Craig Lord so aptly put it, a butcher, a baker, or a candle stick maker. But competing in a sport where male strength is a huge advantage, that is cheating. That should be banned. Lia Thomas cannot swim in female races.

But she did. Here is what happened.

500 yards freestyle

	Place	Time	US Record	Conf. Rec.	NCAA Qual
Heat	1st	4.41.19	4.24.06	4.36.37	4.35.76
Final	1st	4.37.32	4.24.06	4.36.37	4.35.76

Penn’s cheating got them the win and the 32 points. I wonder if the coach thinks the win makes him a better coach. All that testosterone to work with and he can’t even break a US or Conference record or qualify for the NCAA finals. Real women like Jane and Rhi, that I have helped, did better than that.

200 yards freestyle

	Place	Time	US Record	Conf. Rec.	NCAA Qual
Heat	1st	1.44.91	1.39.10	1.43.78	1.42.98
Final	1st	1.43.12	1.39.10	1.43.78	1.42.98

Well, look at this. A new Conference record by 0.66sec. Every year that time will appear on the meet programme reminding the swimming world that Penn, Lia and her coach Mike are cheats. They still couldn’t get her fast enough to qualify for the NCAA finals or get anywhere near Missy Franklin’s US record.

100 yards freestyle

	Place	Time	US Record	Conf. Rec.	NCAA Qual
Heat	2nd	48.71	45.56	47.85	47.18
Final	1st	47.63	45.56	47.85	47.18

And so, another Conference record but still a mile away from Simone Manuel’s US record or qualifying for the NCAA Championships. All that cheating on every female athlete for two Conference records and 96 points. I do hope the Penn Athletic Department think it was worthwhile. They probably see themselves as torch bearers for an oppressed minority. In reality they should hide their head in shame. Banning the swimmer, the coach and the school from NCAA sport would be entirely appropriate.  

There is nothing that justifies 20 years of steroid use just to swim in the women’s events at university. Penn has become America’s East German Potsdam. Penn just found a different way of administering their male drugs. Dress it up anyway you like but Penn and US sport have been stained by what America’s best universities have allowed to take place in their domestic competition this week. Lead the world? I don’t think so.

PS – All that cheating, and Penn University still only managed to get third in the Championship – behind Harvard and Yale. Looks like cheats do not prosper.