How much advantage will male athletes, in women's competitions, have? In athletics, men's performance is significantly ahead of women's, and the same situation also occurs in competitive fields such as swimming.
In addition to a small number of sports such as double multi-directional flying saucer and archery, female athletes can compete with male players, and in more cases, the performance of female athletes is still inferior to that of male athletes.
On March 19, Beijing time, the former male player in the United States, Leah Thomas, set a historical record, becoming the first transgender athlete to win the National College Sports Association (NCAA) First Class Championship.
In February of last year, Thomas underwent sex reassignment surgery, and the athlete from the University of Virginia's men's swimming team has since transformed into a member of the women's swimming team.
After the surgery, Thomas became a daughter, but she was not eligible to compete. Under the NCAA, Thomas can compete in the women's competition on the premise that he must undergo a one-year period of testosterone suppression therapy.
In February, Thomas completed his treatment and passed the NCAA review to qualify for the women's competition.
Thomas, 23, looks like a male player, which is reflected in the pool. In the NCAA women's 500-yard freestyle final (about 457 meters) that ended yesterday, Thomas led the way and was far ahead of the curve throughout the race.
In the final sprint stage, Thomas took the initiative to slow down. Even so, the low-key Thomas won the championship in 4:33.24.
With just one match, why is it possible to judge that Thomas is likely to become the first transgender player in Olympic history to win a gold medal?
That's because the NCAA women's 500-yard freestyle final was crowded, and the runner-up was Emma Weiyant from the University of Virginia, who was the runner-up winner of the women's 4×100m individual medley final at the Tokyo Olympics. Veyant tried his best, still 1.75 seconds behind Thomas on the brakes before the line!
Third in the race was Erica Sullivan from the University of Texas, who also won silver in the women's 1500m freestyle final at the Tokyo Olympics last year.
Although the 500-yard freestyle is not emma Weyante and Erica Sullivan's main sport, being able to win the two Olympic champions in the showdown is enough to show Thomas's absolute advantage in the women's event.
Over the next two days, Thomas will also appear in the women's 100-yard and 200-yard events, and if nothing else, she will also win gold medals in both events.
Of course, Thomas's participation has also caused a lot of controversy, and some voices believe that Thomas's dimensionality reduction blow is unfair to all female players.
In the face of controversy, the NCAA said the policy allowing Thomas to compete preserves opportunities for transgender student-athletes while also taking into account the fairness, inclusion and safety of all entrants. Moreover, this policy is fully consistent with the approach taken by the United States Olympic Committee, the American Paralympic Committee, and the International Olympic Committee.
Three years later, at the Paris Olympics, Thomas was only 26 years old, her main event was freestyle from 800 meters to 100 meters, and it was not impossible to win multiple Olympic gold medals with the performance of winning the Olympic runner-up now.
The question is, is this fair to the other players?