Riley Gaines, a swimmer from the University of Kentucky, has spoken out about University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who is a biological male identifying as a woman, by stating that when the college woman went up against Thomas as part of the NCAA championships, they were not “forewarned” that Thomas would actually be using the locker room with the rest of the female swimmers and undressing in front of them.
Gaines explained, in an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, the atmosphere throughout the championships as Thomas went up against other women.
“People just weren’t really talking about it. And so we get to NCAAs, it was at Georgia Tech, and so we get there, and the environment is nothing like I’ve ever seen before,” explained Gaines. “It was so, like, almost edgy. Like people didn’t really know what to say, who to say what to, how to feel.”
“This was on day one,” she went on. “and then that night we watched Lia Thomas win a national title and blow all the other females completely out of the water. And that next day we came back and the mood had shifted to where people were mad.”
“The girls, you know, there were tears, these poor ninth and seventeenth place finishers who missed out on being named an All-American, there’s extreme discomfort in the locker room, there’s kind of these grumbles of —”
“Is he wandering around the women’s locker room?” Carlson posited, cutting in.
“Yeah. And that’s not something we were forewarned about, which I don’t think is right,” answered Gaines. “And any man’s changing in the locker room with someone who has different parts —”
“They just set a dude loose in your locker room and didn’t tell you,” Carlson went on.
“Exactly,” she shot back. “And so I feel like to have that kind of forced upon us — so not only were we forced to race against a male, we were forced to change in the locker room with one. And so it’s just this feeling of like, ‘What is happening?’ Like, honestly, is this really happening? This is crazy.”
In the wake of finishing fifth in the women’s 200 freestyle, which was tied with Thomas, she was then told that she would not be getting her trophy at the championships because it would instead go to Thomas. Gaines was forced to take the sixth place trophy on the podium and was told her real one would just be mailed to her.
Gaines stated that an official with the NCAA told her, “I just want you to know that we respect you and admire your swim so much, but we just want Lia to hold the fifth place trophy.”
“It was a bit disheartening,” she explained. “It really was. I left the pool with no trophy. Not a big deal, but it was the goal that I had set all year. … The more I thought about it, the more it fired me up. It’s almost like the NCAA is trying to save face by giving Lia the fifth place trophy. … Who are we trying to protect here, and who are we trying to fight for here?”
Gaines also talked about seeing one Virginia Tech swimmer, Rek Gyorgy, who ended up in 17th place for the 500 free due to Thomas finishing at top 16. This caused gyorgy to not qualify for the finals at all due to Thomas.
“When Lia touched the wall, and [Reka] realized that she got 17th, the first thing she said to me was, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I just got beat by someone who probably wasn’t even trying their hardest.’”
“It just broke my heart,” concluded Gaines. “She had tears in her eyes.”