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2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships: Lia Thomas favorite to win 200, 500 freestyle
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The 2022 NCAA Girls’s Swimming and Diving Championships kick off on Wednesday on the McAuley Aquatic Heart in Atlanta, Georgia, the place College of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas will look to shut out a controversial season in three particular person occasions, in two of which Thomas ranks first within the nation.
Thomas, a 22-year-old transgender lady, is one in every of 322 athletes that certified for the lads’s and ladies’s championships this week after securing a number of data on the Ivy League Championships final month with wins within the 100, 200, and 500 freestyle occasions.
Holding the highest seed with a time of 4:34.06, Thomas is the favourite to win the ladies’s 500 free in addition to the 200 free with the highest time of 1:41.93. She additionally stands an excellent probability at upsetting the 100 free because the tenth seeded swimmer.
Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas cheers for teammates competing within the 1650-yard freestyle ultimate on the Ivy League swimming and diving championships at Harvard, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, in Cambridge, Mass.
(AP Picture/Mary Schwalm)
Thomas’ dominance within the pool comes amid a heated debate on whether or not transgender feminine athletes ought to be allowed to compete in opposition to organic females.
The NCAA up to date its transgender participation coverage again in January to defer to the steering of every sport’s governing physique. The NCAA introduced that its coverage would turn into efficient in March, beginning with the Division I Girls’s Swimming and Diving Championships.
16 OF LIA THOMAS’ TEAMMATES URGE PENN, IVY LEAGUE NOT TO FIGHT NEW USA SWIMMING RULES ON TRANSGENDER ATHLETES
USA Swimming up to date its coverage shortly after requiring transgender athletes who’re competing at an elite degree to have small ranges of testosterone – half of what Thomas was allowed to compete with – for not less than 36 months earlier than being eligible, however the NCAA stated weeks later that the Administrative Subcommittee of the Committee on Aggressive Safeguards and Medical Points of Sports activities (CMAS) determined that it wouldn’t alter its testosterone steering, stating that “implementing extra modifications right now might have unfair and doubtlessly detrimental impacts on faculties and student-athletes meaning to compete in 2022 NCAA ladies’s swimming championships.”
Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas smiles after profitable the 100-yard freestyle ultimate on the Ivy League ladies’s swimming and diving championships at Harvard College, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, in Cambridge, Mass.
(AP Picture/Mary Schwalm)
The ladies’s championship begins Wednesday at 6 p.m. with the 200 medley relay. Learn beneath for the complete schedule of occasions.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16
Finals 6 p.m. ET
– 200 Medley Relay
– 800 Freestyle Relay
THURSDAY, MARCH 17
Prelim: 10 a.m. ET
– 500 Freestyle
– 200 Particular person Medley
– 50 Freestyle
– One-meter Diving
Finals: 6 p.m. ET
– 500 Freestyle
– 200 Particular person Medley
– 50 Freestyle
– One-meter Diving
FRIDAY, MARCH 18
Prelim: 10 a.m. ET
– 400 Particular person Medley
– 100 Butterfly
– 200 Freestyle
– 100 Breaststroke
– 100 Backstroke
– Three-meter Diving
Remaining: 6 p.m. ET
– 400 Particular person Medley
– 100 Butterfly
– 200 Freestyle
– 100 Breaststroke
– 100 Backstroke
– Three-meter Diving
SATURDAY, MARCH 19
Prelims: 10 a.m. ET
– 200 Backstroke
– 100 Freestyle
– 200 Breaststroke
– 200 Butterfly
– Platform Diving
– 1,650 Freestyle
Finals: 6 p.m. ET
– 200 Backstroke
– 100 Freestyle
– 200 Breaststroke
– 200 Butterfly
– Platform Diving
– 400 Freestyle Relay
Fox Information’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.