NBC Olympics Swimming Analyst Sends Message To Transgender Swimmers, Tells OutKick ‘It’s Not Fair’

OutKick spoke with 3x Olympic Gold Medalist swimmer and longtime NBC swimming sportscaster Rowdy Gaines about the upcoming Paris Summer Olympics. In addition to the Olympic Games themselves, this year swimming has found itself surrounded in another debate - one about if transgender athletes should be able to compete against females.

The issue made its way to the highest level of the World Aquatics governing body - which upheld a ban against transgenders swimming against female competitors. The lawsuit was brought up by American transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who competed and won the 2022 NCAA Championship while swimming for the University of Pennsylvania - something that Rowdy Gaines says was the correct decision, simply when it comes down to fair competition.

"I'm of the opinion that there has to be fairness in our sport of swimming. That's the bottom line. Is it fair and equitable to those women who are competing? I don't know the answer to that from a medical side of things," Gaines told OutKick. "I can just see that from 30,000-foot level, and it's not fair, that's the bottom line."

"SWIMMING NEEDS TO BE FAIR AND EQUITABLE"

"I think the powers-that-be [of the World Acquatic Board] made the right decisions with the [Lia Thomas decision] but this subject is not going to go away, and it's probably something that we probably need to dig deeper into and try and find out something more about the science behind it."

Last month, three judges on the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed Thomas's request for arbitration with the World Aquatics governing body over her challenge that it was discriminatory to not allow her to compete in the Olympic qualifying trials. Under the World Aquatics rules that were established in 2022, transgender women who have been through male puberty were barred from competing in women's races.

Lia Thomas competes at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 17th, 2022 at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta Georgia.  (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

What's interesting about the CAS dismissal was that they did so in part because they ruled Thomas didn't have legal standing to bring forth the appeal because she was not even registered as a swimmer in any World Aquatics events and was also no longer a member of US Swimming, thus the court said Thomas was "not sufficiently" impacted by the current rules. The CAS also said that by Thomas's legal argument, she acknowledged herself that "she accepts that fair competition is a legitimate sporting objective and that some regulation of transgender women in swimming is appropriate."

Despite the ban on transgender swimmers competing against females, the World Aquatics organization has created an "open" category in which transgender athletes would be eligible and would be able to still have their times counted and recorded.

Like many others, Rowdy Gaines told OutKick that he supports the ‘Open’ category. "I want them to be able to compete someway or another," he said.

PARIS OLYMPIC GAMES BEGIN ON JULY 26TH

"I sympathize on both sides of [the argument] but I am also a father of four daughters and I really understand," Gaines continued before saying that it's not just him saying this but also former greats such as Martina Navratilova and Nancy Hogshead. "This isn't me [saying this], this is very prominent female athletes in the world of athletics that have said ‘This is just not fair,’ and you have to listen to those experts too," Gaines continued. 

In the end, Rowdy Gaines admitted that there are two sides to every story, and in the end it's "above his pay grade," but maintains the belief that "as long as everything is fair and equitable to our female athletes, I don't [and won't] have a problem with anything."

You'll be able to hear U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame swimmer Rowdy Gaines calling the upcoming swimming vents at the Paris Olympics, which begin on July 26th.