Lia Thomas Wins 500 Freestyle National Championship Over Biological Females

In one of the least climactic moments in women's sports history, Penn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas won the 500 freestyle national championship over a field of biological females in Atlanta, Georgia.

Thomas' time of 4:33.24 was a season-best for Thomas and ended up as the top 500 freestyle time in college swimming. Biological female Virginia freshman swimmer Emma Weyant (4:34.99) was the unlucky competitor who finished runner-up to Thomas in the finals.

3rd place went to Erica Sullivan, who won a silver medal at the Tokyo Games in the 1500-meter freestyle; Brooke Forde, who won a silver at the Tokyo Games in a 4X200 freestyle relay race, finished fourth to Thomas.

Thomas' victory comes after nearly three months of controversy, including teammates speaking out to OutKick about what this means for their sport.

“When I have kids, I kinda hope they’re all boys because if I have any girls that want to play sports in college, good luck. are all going to be biological men saying that they’re women,” Thomas’ teammate told OutKick in December. “Right now we have one, but what if we had three on the team? There’d be three less girls competing.”

Thomas will be back in the pool Friday for the 200 freestyle race. Olympic hero Missy Franklin's 2015 NCAA record of 1:39.10 is in serious jeopardy as Thomas went 1:41.93 in December.