Trans swimmers banned

[johnofgwent]

Are you suggesting that some athletes would transition in order to raise their rankings in their chosen sport?

I guess some weird individuals (or coaches, organisations, or countries) might go in for it. After all, some people have wrecked their lives through drugs and medical procedures trying to enhance their physiques and performances...

I think the pressure is there.

I spoke on the previous forum of my personal experience of the atmosphere of elite swimming.

When my kids were young they were members of a swimming club. It was a little different from many others as almost all in it had some form of respiratory issue or were a sibling of a child who was. The head coach , a physiotherapist, had found ages ago that the warm moist air in a swimming pool greatly assisted exercise for asthmatics and allowed serious advantages in using swimming as an exercise to combat its effects.

There were no Paralympics then ! 

Sarah, my eldest, joined to gain fitness in spite of her ventricular septal defect. In her teens she found the extreme training programme too hard to follow and switched to being an instructor. To this day she has a way with certain kids, particularly those diagnosed as autistic, which the kids parents declare remarkable.

Jennifer my youngest swam with the club because her sister did. She was quite fast.

One summer the club went on a fortnight training camp to "Club La Santa" in Lanzarote to give the older members of the squad and club a taste of the training to come if they went for it in the world of elite sport. I took Moira and the girls then eight and four ....

The squad were in the 50 metre pool at five or six in the morning, the club including Sarah at the less insane time of 9 (ish). They were in in one lane of a pool where the other lanes were being used by German, French, Irish Olympic teams. 

One lane in the pool was "unbookable" and reserved for the use of any resort guests for "serious swimming" and I was among those who used it for an hour or so. It helped with my scuba diving which I was doing with the dive school at the centre.

Jennifer, then four, felt positively ignored and pissed off that she could not take part. Her friend Ellie aged three, daughter of a club instructor, was similarly miffed. So on the last day we gave them a treat. At seven o'clock they were put into club racing colours swimsuits, caps and goggles and taken to the Olympic pool the racing squad had already done an hour's training in.

I was hauled out of bed and sent with mask snorkel and fins to wait half way up the public swim lane in case it all went wrong.

Jennifer and Ellie marched up and looked every bit the "team mascots" you see little kids in team colours at football....

The German and Irish Olympic squads were at the pool already. Team GB or whatever it was then were on the way to start.  To a man and woman the teams and coaches looked at the kids and thought aw aren't they cute. Well you would ....

Then Sharon the head coach told them to get ready in the public lane. Both girls climbed into the pool, and took up the backstroke racing start position. She took out her clapper board ... And all chatter in the other teams stopped.

The two girls went off the side like rockets and proceeded to do fifty metres backstroke, fifty metres breast stroke and 100 metres freestyle. At three, and four years old.

Like almost all Olympic lifeguards, I was redundant !

As the girls finished their little treat (!!) I looked around.

The guys were still thinking "aw aren't they cute". 

There was a glint in the eye of the coaches

 And the girls in the other squads all had a strange look. I couldn't work it out but then it hit me. I bet they were thinking something like "three Olympics, that's all I've got to get gold, because come the fourth, three feet from the line, one of these two will overtake me and win"

Ellie went on to join Team GB.

Jennifer was badly injured by a spiteful little aubergine (is that the word the spell checker uses as a replacement these days) in secondary school who, incensed at her fitness and figure it brought, kicked the back of her knee as she walked the path out of school and sent her flying down a twelve foot grass bank. The injury sustained put paid to her competitive swimming and she has needed three operations since.

Melissa is now a first year pupil in the same school. I do wonder if she and her similarly athletic friends (Melissa's dance classes mean she's about five foot six and nine stone of solid muscle already !!) will face similar bullying.

[Nick]

I find it difficult to understand a trans who is still entire, who admits to still fancying women, who parades naked around a women's changing room as being serious about being a woman particularly as they break female records to the point that women can no longer attain the times. I would hope that it was not the case but we have already experienced women from Russia given testosterone to make them winners so I suppose there is no reason to assume that it is impossible. In this world it seems anything is possible.

That was another point that she made. She was competing when the Russians and East Germans where cheating on a ridiculous level, she had to be 15% better than anyone to have a chance. And she won a medal, but should have been a lot more.

[Borchester]

As Bruce Bairnsfathers character Old Bill said

"If you can find a better 'ole go to it" 

That Ollie, appears to be what the fuss is about.

[T00ts]

Are you suggesting that some athletes would transition in order to raise their rankings in their chosen sport?

I guess some weird individuals (or coaches, organisations, or countries) might go in for it. After all, some people have wrecked their lives through drugs and medical procedures trying to enhance their physiques and performances...

I find it difficult to understand a trans who is still entire, who admits to still fancying women, who parades naked around a women's changing room as being serious about being a woman particularly as they break female records to the point that women can no longer attain the times. I would hope that it was not the case but we have already experienced women from Russia given testosterone to make them winners so I suppose there is no reason to assume that it is impossible. In this world it seems anything is possible.

[cromwell]

Are you suggesting that some athletes would transition in order to raise their rankings in their chosen sport?
I dunno but some Russian women shot putters 

[patman post]

Yes in swimming she takes the brunt. I don't know of others. There is also a British cyclist who competed a short time ago as a man with some mediocrity who wants to compete with women. At present she is banned as not having the medication long enough. My hope is that cycling will also see the sense of making another contest category thus making a level playing field. I can't imagine the fuss at the next Olympics if the sporting agencies don't sort themselves out.

Are you suggesting that some athletes would transition in order to raise their rankings in their chosen sport?

I guess some weird individuals (or coaches, organisations, or countries) might go in for it. After all, some people have wrecked their lives through drugs and medical procedures trying to enhance their physiques and performances...

[T00ts]

Sharon Davies made the point the other day, you don't see any trans men wanting to compete against the likes of Adam Peaty.

I wonder why?

Exactly! 

[Nick]

Sharon Davies made the point the other day, you don't see any trans men wanting to compete against the likes of Adam Peaty.

I wonder why?

[T00ts]

It has been announced today that Rugby League has also forbidden trans women from playing in the women's game - for health and safety reasons.

[Barry]

At last some critical thinking on how trans women athletes are impacting women's sports, and swimming has taken the lead.  Let's hope that others will soon follow.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10932093/Swimming-set-sport-create-category-allow-transgender-athletes-compete.html

Good.
I do wonder if all this is a bit of a weird phase of delusion some parts of the world are going through. Perhaps something in the water or Fosters lager is affecting men. Seriously, when the delusion is laid to rest and the rebellion put down, this period will be looked back on and we'll say, "Did we really do all that Schitt?"

[T00ts]

The only example I can find is of one 'Lia Thomas" who won an American freestyle competition coming in one and a half seconds in front of the REAL woman who previously won medals at this sport at this distance.

The winning margin was over one and a half seconds over four minutes

Its been too many bloody years since I sat nervously at the poolside watching my youngest destroy the competition but I seem to recall wins at teenage to twenty something level over 200 metre and 400 metre distances were measured in fractions of seconds. One and a half seems to be a lot looking back in memory.

This is why I was opposed to mixing trans women and real women in the same event. As a biologist, the developmental changes that gave women rods in the retina where I have cones, giving them far better detail to my better 3D perception, and the biceps and triceps striations that gave women dexterity to my power were set in place years and years before any conversion "therapy" kicked in, a fact that gives these fake women a definite power and stamina advantage over the genuine article.

Yes in swimming she takes the brunt. I don't know of others. There is also a British cyclist who competed a short time ago as a man with some mediocrity who wants to compete with women. At present she is banned as not having the medication long enough. My hope is that cycling will also see the sense of making another contest category thus making a level playing field. I can't imagine the fuss at the next Olympics if the sporting agencies don't sort themselves out.

[johnofgwent]

At last some critical thinking on how trans women athletes are impacting women's sports, and swimming has taken the lead.  Let's hope that others will soon follow.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10932093/Swimming-set-sport-create-category-allow-transgender-athletes-compete.html

The only example I can find is of one 'Lia Thomas" who won an American freestyle competition coming in one and a half seconds in front of the REAL woman who previously won medals at this sport at this distance.

The winning margin was over one and a half seconds over four minutes 

Its been too many bloody years since I sat nervously at the poolside watching my youngest destroy the competition but I seem to recall wins at teenage to twenty something level over 200 metre and 400 metre distances were measured in fractions of seconds. One and a half seems to be a lot looking back in memory.

This is why I was opposed to mixing trans women and real women in the same event. As a biologist, the developmental changes that gave women rods in the retina where I have cones, giving them far better detail to my better 3D perception, and the biceps and triceps striations that gave women dexterity to my power were set in place years and years before any conversion "therapy" kicked in, a fact that gives these fake women a definite power and stamina advantage over the genuine article.

[T00ts]

At last some critical thinking on how trans women athletes are impacting women's sports, and swimming has taken the lead.  Let's hope that others will soon follow.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10932093/Swimming-set-sport-create-category-allow-transgender-athletes-compete.html