With her victory in Atlanta, Thomas, who competes for the University of Pennsylvania, became the first openly transgender woman to win an N.C.A.A. swimming championship.
Lia Thomas, the transgender woman whose record-threatening times on the University of Pennsylvania’s swim team made her a star of college athletics and a symbol of the debate over sports and gender identity, won an N.C.A.A. championship in the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday. Thomas, a fifth-year senior who arrived for the swimming championships in Atlanta as the top seed in the 500 and 200 freestyle races, completed the race in 4 minutes,33.24 seconds, more than a second ahead of the runner-up. Thomas’ victory made her the first openly transgender woman to win an N.C.A.A. swimming title, a feat that came nearly three years after the hurdler CeCe Telfer became the first openly transgender person to capture an N.C.A.A. championship. But Thomas’ triumph in Atlanta — indeed, her very presence at the swimming championships as a contender — came amid a far larger storm, particularly in statehouses and right-wing media, about sports participation by transgender girls and women seeking to compete in girls and women’s divisions. The issue, which on Thursday drew a handful of demonstrators to Georgia Tech’s campus, the site of the championships, had long buffeted the college sports industry. But it intensified as Thomas posted times that left opponents far behind and put some collegiate records under new pressure. In December, Thomas recorded a 500 free time of 4:34.06, behind Katie Ledecky’s 4:24.06 mark from 2017. Thomas’ best time this season in the 200 free,1:41.93, also posted in December, trailed the N.C.A.A. record of 1:39.10 that Missy Franklin set in 2015. Both Ledecky and Franklin are Olympic gold medalists. The 200 free will be contested on Friday. Thomas has said little in public this season, her final collegiate campaign to cap a distinguished career that included runner-up finishes in several men’s freestyle races at the Ivy League championships in 2019, even as her story rocketed from the insular swimming community onto talk shows and social media. In an interview that Sports Illustrated published this month, not long after Thomas won this year’s Ivy League women’s championships in the 100-,200- and 500-yard freestyle events, she said: “I don’t look into the negativity and the hate.
