{"id":591,"date":"2025-06-18T01:46:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T01:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/?p=591"},"modified":"2025-06-18T01:46:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T01:46:45","slug":"breaking-news-lia-thomas-loses-her-legal-battle-and-no-longer-has-a-chance-to-qualify-for-the-olympic-games-a-major-victory-for-womens-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/?p=591","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING NEWS: Lia Thomas loses her legal battle and no longer has a chance to qualify for the Olympic Games \u2013 a major victory for women\u2019s sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Thomas, the biological male who won the 2022 women\u2019s national championship as a swimmer for Penn, has officially lost a legal battle against World Aquatics in which Thomas argued that his ban on competing against women was \u201cinvalid and unlawful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old was banned from swimming in the women\u2019s category in the summer of 2022 when the sport\u2019s governing body banned all swimmers who had gone through \u201cany part of male puberty\u201d from competing against biological women.<\/p>\n

World Aquatics welcomed the court\u2019s decision to uphold the rule keeping Thomas out of the women\u2019s pool, calling it \u201ca major step forward in our efforts to protect women\u2019s sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWorld Aquatics is committed to creating an environment that promotes equality, respect and equal opportunities for athletes of all genders, and we reaffirm this commitment,\u201d the organization said, according to\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that World Aquatics has not banned transgender athletes from competitions. The organization has introduced an \u201copen\u201d category for transgender swimmers. The new category debuted at last year\u2019s World Cup in Berlin, but failed to attract a single competitor.<\/p>\n

Lia Thomas stands next to Outkick\u2019s Riley Gaines after winning an NCAA title against biological women. (Photo: Rich Von Biberstein\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Thomas, who was an average swimmer at best when she competed against the men, is no longer a member of USA Swimming, which makes the court\u2019s decision against a policy change in her favor so easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe panel concludes that the athlete is simply ineligible to compete in WA events because, under US Swimming policy, he is ineligible to compete in an \u2018elite event,\u2019 let alone a WA event. This occurs when he registers with WA prior to a competition or performs a performance that results in a claim for registration as a WA world record,\u201d the court said, according to the WA media office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current situation simply does not meet the political and operational requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US Olympic Qualifying Games begin on June 15 in Indianapolis and will be played for the first time on a football field at Lucas Oil Stadium.<\/p>\n

\"Transgender<\/p>\n

In 2022, when ESPN and ABC honored Thomas as part of Women\u2019s History Month, Thomas sat down with \u201cGood Morning America\u201d \u200b\u200band made it clear that she was thinking about the 2024 Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been my goal for a long time to swim in the Olympic qualifying competitions and I would love to see it happen,\u201d said Thomas.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, common sense prevailed, and women were given the opportunity to compete on the women\u2019s swim team and represent the United States in Paris.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas, the biological male who won the 2022 women\u2019s national championship as a swimmer for Penn, has officially lost a legal battle against World Aquatics in which Thomas argued that … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":592,"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todaynews11.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}