Taylor Ruck of Stanford gained the race in 1:41.12. Thomas touched the wall in 1:43.40, as did Riley Gaines of Florida.
On Thursday, Thomas turned into the primary transgender athlete to win an NCAA Department I identify after completing first within the ladies’s 500-yard freestyle tournament.
“It way the sector to be right here,” Thomas informed ESPN after that race.
There have been a couple of jeers from spectators within the venue, with one particular person yelling “cheater” as Thomas gave her interview.
Thomas, who in the past swam for the boys’s workforce at Penn, has come to personify the continued debate on trans ladies’s participation in sports activities and the steadiness between inclusion and honest play.
With Thursday’s victory, Thomas is the primary transgender athlete to win a D-I identify in any recreation. CeCé Telfer used to be the primary transgender athlete to win an NCAA identify of any type when she gained the 2019 Department II championship within the ladies’s 400-meter hurdles.
Thomas first introduced into the general public eye with a surprising efficiency on the Zippy Invitational in Ohio in December, when she set NCAA season best possible occasions within the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle races. On the Ivy League ladies’s championships remaining month, she gained the 100-yard, 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle races.
With good fortune has come complaint about whether or not trans ladies must be allowed to compete in ladies’s sports activities. Her face has been prominently displayed on Fox Information and right-wing information websites important of society’s converting perspectives on intercourse and gender.
