It was announced on Wednesday that the 25-year-old swimmer would not be permitted compete in the Olympic Games after losing her legal battle to have the rules barring her potential involvement overturned.
Paula Scanlan has welcomed the news that her former team-mate Lia Thomas will not be allowed compete at the Olympic Games and says she should receive an apology for being “forced to undress” with the transgender athlete “18 times a week”. The Mail has the story.
It was announced on Wednesday afternoon that the 25-year-old swimmer would not be permitted compete in the Olympic Games after losing her legal battle to have the rules barring her potential involvement overturned.
Scanlan took to social media shortly after verdict was revealed to demand an apology, writing the following on X: “Okay, but is anyone going to apologise for forcing us to undress with him 18 times a week?”
Thomas first caught the headlines in March 2022 when he became the first trans-athlete to win the women’s NCAA college swimming title – the USA’s most prestigious college title.
But, it wasn’t long before the World Aquatics (WA) introduced a rule change that would prevent anyone who had undergone “any part of male puberty” from competing in the female category.
Instead, it created an ‘open’ category for which transgender athletes would be eligible. However, the decision didn’t sit well with Thomas – who asked for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn the rules approved in 2022.
Thomas – who swam for Pennsylvania’s men’s team for three seasons before beginning hormone replacement therapy in early 2019 – said that the rules were invalid, unlawful and discriminatory.
However, the CAS panel consisting of three judges dismissed Thomas’s request for arbitration with the World Aquatics governing body and threw the case out on a ‘technicality’.
It said that Thomas was “simply not entitled to engage with eligibility to compete in WA competitions such as the Olympics or world championships” because he was no longer a part of U.S. swimming.
As a result, the decision ended Thomas’s hopes of competing at the Olympic Games – which the 25-year-old referred to as “deeply disappointing” in a statement provided by his legal team.
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