FINA votes to limit transgender ladies from elite swimming competitors – ESPN

Swimming’s world governing physique, FINA, on Sunday voted to limit the participation of transgender athletes in elite ladies’s competitions and create a working group to determine an “open” class for them in some occasions as a part of its new coverage.

The new coverage, which takes impact Monday, would require transgender opponents to have accomplished their transition by the age of 12 to have the ability to compete in ladies’s competitions. The working group will spend the following six months to find out methods to arrange the brand new open class, FINA stated.

The rules would have a significant impression on the profession of Lia Thomas, who earlier this yr grew to become the primary overtly transgender girl to win a NCAA Division I ladies’s swimming title.

Thomas instructed Sports Illustrated in March that she needs to proceed to compete after faculty, with the 2024 U.S. Olympic trials as a objective.

She declined to touch upon the brand new coverage to ESPN.

The choice was made throughout FINA’s extraordinary common congress on the sideline of the world championships in Budapest, Hungary, after members heard a report from a transgender activity pressure made up by main medical, authorized and sports activities figures.

The coverage was handed with a roughly 71% majority after it was put to the members of 152 nationwide federations with voting rights that had gathered for the congress on the Puskas Arena.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.