Free Republic

Chinese health authorities reported the first deaths from COVID-19 in more than a year. The country’s National Health Commission disclosed two deaths in Jilin province, bringing China’s official death count to 4,638.

Lia Thomas, an NCAA athlete, appears to be quite tall in her photos, and her height is estimated to be around 6 feet 1 inch.

Transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas took first place today in the 500 freestyle, surprising no one. Lia Thomas just took first place at the 2022 NCAA Division 1 Women's Swimming & Diving Championships in the 500 freestyle. #SaveWomensSports pic.twitter.com/UWvDQMYHRJ — Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) March 17, 2022 Caitlyn Jenner has weighed in on Thomas; according to Pink News, Jenner said, “I don’t see how you can be happy beating other girls under these circumstances. You have to have a sense of personal responsibility. You can still enjoy sports but not play at a competitive level, right?” In its tweet...

ATLANTA — Lia Thomas took control in the final 100 yards of the 500-yard freestyle to make history Thursday as the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship. Thomas, the University of Pennsylvania senior who entered the NCAA women’s swimming and diving championships as the top seed, had a season-best time of 4 minutes, 33.24 seconds. “I didn’t have a whole lot of expectation for this meet,” said Thomas, a former male swimmer for Penn State. “I was just happy to be here and race and compete the best I could.” Virginia’s Emma Weyant was second at 4:34.99....

Hobbes was both right and wrong; it didn’t catch on for white boys, as they have been deemed to be chromosomally advantaged youth. But for boys of any stripe who choose to identify as girls, well, “chromosomally challenged” seems to work quite nicely.Swimmer Lia Thomas (nee ‘Will’) becomes NCAA's first transgender D-I champion in any sportIf we can’t deal with this sort of insanity how on earth do we expect to deal with real issues in this increasingly complex world? Answer: we can’t and we won’t.Time for a different tack.Title X legislation anyone? I say give them their own water...

Some upsets this morning. Should only get better. Concludes w/ Championships on Saturday night.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has announced it will allow transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to use new rules extending the time trans athletes had to demonstrate lowered testosterone levels. The move means swimmer Lia Thomas, who competed for the men’s team for three years before “identifying” as a woman, can compete in the women’s national championship. “The subcommittee decided implementing additional changes at this time could have unfair and potentially detrimental impacts on schools and student-athletes intending to compete in 2022 NCAA women’s swimming championships,” the NCAA said in a statement. According to Bleacher Report: The NCAA said transgender...

PHILADELPHIA (TND) - A transgender athlete who competes for the University of Pennsylvania women's swim team may be ineligible to compete for this year's NCAA Championships after a recent rule change from USA Swimming. Lia Thomas, 22, has already sparked a nationwide conversation about fairness in women's sports after she repeatedly dominated meets. She was born biologically male, and competed for her college's men's team before transitioning. Thomas has been in compliance with the NCAA's policy for transgender athletes. After taking testosterone suppressants for over a year, Thomas is allowed to compete as a woman. **SNIP** Three independent medical experts...

Our insane world has hit woke bottom. This is from Fox News: Penn swimmer Lia Thomas came away with wins in the 100 meter and 200-meter freestyle races against Harvard on Saturday. The victories came days after NCAA updated its policy for transgender participation and how it will be determined on a sport-by-sport basis.What did Thomas do? He, and he is a he, shattered women's records. Who knows what women were denied scholarships because of this? The answer is for men to compete with men and women with women. It's not discrimination. It's common sense.Let's give a cheer for Texas...

(35)So what to call this? Selective useabuse of “science”? Bowing to educators? Blatant dishonesty? Money-grubbing? Sheer hypocrisy? Wait — I think I’ve got it. Let’s go with all of the above — and then some.Michigan State University won’t allow in-person learning until the final day of January, but at the same time has had zero problem with opening the Breslin Center arena to nearly 15,000 screaming fans for every Spartans home basketball game this month. Shocked? Me, neither.Michigan State University allows nearly 15,000 basketball fans at sold-out games but shuts down in-person learning in January https://t.co/dnkJ0EWfKN— TheBlaze (@theblaze) January 23,...

The NCAA on Thursday released its new COVID guidance for winter sports, and the guidance contains some important news. As ESPN reports, the NCAA Medical Advisory Group updated its definition of “fully vaccinated” to account for various new vaccinations, boosters, and immunity factors. “Fully vaccinated individuals now include those within two months of receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, five months of receiving the Pfizer vaccine series or six months of receiving the Moderna vaccine series; and individuals who are beyond the aforementioned timeline and have received the booster vaccine.” But perhaps the biggest development came in the following line....

The news comes out tonight the University of Miami will be unable to play in this year’s Sun Bowl. Originally, the plan was for UM to face Washington State. ... The team has said a significant number of players testing positive for COVID, but they initially planned to withhold from any of the ritual pre-game events in the days ahead. Despite hopes that enough players could be cleared by the New Year’s Eve kickoff, the school tonight declared this would not be a feasible goal. [Snip] An irony now arises, as more teams are technically eligible but there are fewer...

If you want one exemplar of the moral and intellectual chaos that characterizes the age in which we live, there are a number of candidates: "Having fewer police leads to a decrease in violent crime" is one. "Men give birth" is another. But perhaps the most obvious moral and intellectual absurdity of all is the notion that Lia Thomas, a member of the University of Pennsylvania's women's swim team, won fairly in the team's recent meet against the Cornell University women's swim team. You see, Lia Thomas was a man until two years ago, when he announced that she is...

After biological male transgender swimmer Lia Thomas dominated women’s events at the Zippy Invitational at the University of Akron earlier this month, athletes have expressed their frustrations at the fact that a man pretending to be a woman is setting records and overshadowing actual women in NCAA competitions.Last week here at PJ Media, my esteemed colleague Robert Spencer noted that Thomas’ fellow swimmers — the real women swimmers of the University of Pennsylvania — are secretly unhappy with their teammate.Behind the façade of joy and pride in Thomas’ accomplishments is growing discontent with the devaluation of women’s athletics that the...

Penn administration 'strongly advise' its swimmers to avoid talking to the media about the situation surrounding Thomas.. ... Even after a Wednesday team meeting where a source says Penn administration "strongly advised" its swimmers to avoid talking to the media about the situation surrounding transgender Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, a second female Penn swimmer has stepped forward to speak out ... The second female Penn swimmer to speak out, who was granted anonymity due to what is viewed as threats from the university, activists, and the political climate, wants people to know that Penn swimmers are "angry" over the lack...

A teammate of Lia Thomas on the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team has spoken out as the transgender swimmer has shattered school records. SNIP “Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this. Our coach [Mike Schnur] just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do,” the female Penn swimmer said. “When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing.’ It’s very fake.”

Cam Newton was the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. Barack Obama was still in his first presidential term. The iPhone 4 was just released. That was also the last year Michigan defeated Ohio State in football... until Saturday. The Wolverines, after 10 years of frustration, finally defeated their bitter rivals, 42-27. Michigan (11-1), which entered at No. 5 in the College Football Playoff rankings, will now jump into position to make its first playoff appearance. A win in the Big 10 championship game next weekend would nearly guarantee it. Ohio State (10-2) moved up to No. 2 in...

Controversy will unfortunately be the story of Saturday’s marquee Michigan–Michigan State clash if the Spartans come back and win this afternoon’s game. Late in the second quarter, Michigan linebacker David Ojabo strip-sacked Michigan State quarterback Payton Thorne. The ball rolled into the end-zone before Wolverines star Aidan Hutchinson recovered it for a touchdown to make it a 26-14 Michigan lead. The refs reviewed the play to check whether or not Thorne was down before he fumbled the ball. Replay appeared to confirm it was a clean fumble before Thorne hit the ground. The replay center somehow saw otherwise. The officials...

Nebraska dropped a 23-20 heartbreaker in overtime at Michigan State on Saturday, further warming the seat on which head coach Scott Frost resides. The Cornhuskers dropped to 2-3 this year with the loss and are now a paltry 14-23 under Frost since he took the job prior to the 2108 season.

They'll play a game Saturday morning in which the home team is a 22-point favorite. The game was deemed so non-competitive that the visiting team tried to cancel it a scant six months ago. Forget about the label once affixed to the most notable game in this rivalry's history: Game of the Century. Nebraska-Oklahoma is not even the game of the day headed into Week 3 of the 2021 college football season. The rivalry is a shell of its former self, the threads of history yanked apart by time and conference realignment. A rivalry that used to measure itself against...