#50m freestyle

[catwithaknife]

getting back into swimming after covid is a nightmare btw

#can't do more than 50m of freestyle without turning into a gasping mess #still swam 1500m today but mostly with the kick board

[friendlymathematician]

women's sports appreciation post:

this is sarah sjöström

she just won her fifth wold championship gold medal in a row in 50m butterfly and 15 minutes later set a world record in the semi-finals for 50m freestyle.

she now has 20 individual medals from long course world championships, which is only matched by michael phelps. if she takes the 50m freestyle gold tomorrow, she will beat him.

she is the only woman to ever swim 50m butterfly in less than 25 seconds, a feat she has accomplished 17 times. her world record, 24.43, is therefore more than half a second faster than any other woman has ever swam this distance. she currently holds four long course world records: 100m and 50m butterfly and freestyle. she managed her first world record (and second, the next day) when she was just 15 (100m butterfly).

#women's sports #sarah sjöström

[jellyluchi]

No no no please tell us more about the la squadra swim team au. Science purposes of course

This has been sitting in my drafts for literal YEARS and I wanted to post it, originally was supposed to have all the members but I lost my ideas.

La Squadra x Reader; Swim Team AU

A/N: I'm so sorry for taking this long to answer but I wanted to take my time with this ask because I really do love this AU and I was busy. Thank you to my friends for some help (since most I know of swim teams is from fuckin Free! Iwatobi Swim Club LOL) Hehe science purposes huh 😏 Sorry there's no smut in this one but I wanted to rule out the setting for the AU!

You work at your local Passione Sporting Club, a place where many a professional athletes have trained to become who they are today. And while there are various sporting facilities available, you are in charge of taking care of a specific swim team, La Squadra. The formation of the team, as you learned when you first joined, happened several years ago as seven children banded together as friends to support each other's swimming careers. And you are happy to help them on their journey. As you know, there are 4 main styles of swimming; butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. Medleys usually take place in that order.

Sorbet & Gelato:

Not swimmers. They're actually coaches for the other swimmers who come to Passione Sporting Club. They've been here for 10 almost 20 years watching the rest of the group who now call themselves "La Squadra" grow athletically and professionally. They were previously in the national Italian swim team as medley racers respectively. They were most fond of relay races as they loved the team work shared between team mates when doing such a race. They only teach adult swimmers but it didn't stop them from noticing younger members of La Squadra practicing in the swimming pools. The passion they saw in some of the members let them know how far they would go. You, as the team's manager, have a good professional relationship with them. However, it doesn't stop Gelato from flirting with you sometimes, surprising you considering you know he has been with Sorbet for a long time. Even more surprising that Sorbet doesn't seem fazed and is receptive to the idea. They sometimes joke about teaching you to swim as well.

Sorbet first met Gelato when he joined the local swimming club of his childhood. They became fast friends and rivals, always trying to outrace each other. Sorbet had goals of reaching the Olympics since he was a child and with Gelato's support he made it together with him. His favorite style is the front crawl which he is most comfortable with. He's proudest win was a front crawl 100m competition where he got gold.

Gelato started swimming as a hobby. He never envisioned himself as an Olympic swimmer. But when he saw Sorbet's resolve to make it, he got inspired and made it his goal to reach the Olympics with his boyfriend. His favorite style is the breaststroke and his proudest win was the a 50m backstroke competition where he got silver since it's his weakest style.

Risotto:

When Risotto was a child living in Sicily, his cousin often went swimming in the sea with him which is where he first learned. Ever since then, he'd known what career he'd like to go to once he grows up. And so, he took a swimming scholarship to college and during his pre-teens he joined Passione Sporting Club to train for his future career. Everyone knows him as a backstroke master and you can see why when you notice his immaculate back muscles during training. While he's good at the other styles, he's much faster using the backstroke. His proudest moment was winning a national competition of 100m men's backstroke where he won gold. You know he was one of the original members of "La Squadra" the other two being Formaggio and Prosciutto when those three decided to start the club. He's the most cooperative with you when it comes to competitions. As the manager, one of your duties is to rule out social and athletic events that the members will attend and he's always receptive to the competitions you tell him will be good for his career. He's not the most communicative so you have to weed out some of thoughts and feelings on the matter. Because of your friendly nature, you two share a close bond as you help him train and often see him swim way past closing. It's a secret between you two that you cherish deeply. There have been some times where he offered you to swim with him.

Risotto favors free style swimming the most but his muscle development on his upper body has made him a good breaststroke user which makes him much faster than the front crawl

Out of all competitions, he loves swimming medley relays the most. He gathers the medley participants (usually other la squadra members) to give a motivating speech and cheers the loudest when he's not swimming with them. He may not show it, but he is highly competitive and likes being challenged in the pool.

Prosciutto:

As one of the founding members of the original team, Prosciutto regards La Squadra with lots of pride. As a child he had no passion for swimming but after joining the Passione Sporting Club with a mild interest, he was quickly swept away into practice. He realized as a child that swimming allowed him a way to focus his energy and determination. He's not one to half-ass anything and swimming was no different. Eventually, he started feeling a connection to swimming after exercising out all his stress through the activity and finding a love for the activity like no other. Members like Risotto and Formaggio were inspiring to him even if he didn't admit it verbally, he showed up to practice with the two everyday, determined to be like them. He's one of the more difficult members to get along with. At first, it seems he has almost nothing to tell you except talk about his career goals and about helping other team members (namely Pesci). But eventually, your conversations turned more casual and you got to see a side of him that is much more friendly. Sometimes, he would smile towards you from the pool and you noticed that he doesn't ever miss the opportunity to show you his gratitude as their manager. Communicating that it's a difficult job and that he's glad a person like you is able to keep track of all the members and how much he appreciates your organization. You can't lie that his words are some of the only things that makes the job worth it.

Prosciutto is the only member with no preference towards style. While he was developing his swimming skills, he decided to pay hone each style so he would not be lacking in any area. While that doesn't make him a specialist, it gives him more options in competitions.

He rather enjoys individual competitions and loves competing against the other members. Whenever Formaggio dares him for a casual friendly race, he never backs down, treating it as a real race. The other members get a kick out of him taking everything a bit too seriously.

Pesci:

Swimming is as easy to him as breathing. Growing up with a fishing family by the sea, Pesci was accustomed to swimming from an extremely early age. It was sheer passion of swimming among the fish that kept him going but it was largely a hobby. He joined Passione Sporting Club as a teen, to keep up his swimming skills during high school but quickly met Prosciutto who inspired him to no end. Prosciutto once praised his style and speed saying he could make it to the nationals if he tried, maybe even the Olympics and from that moment he decided to join La Squadra and make both himself and the team proud. He's the most amicable out of anyone else in the team and since the moment you two met you'd become easy friends. At first he was a bit shy to talk to you but he caught your eye a couple of times during swim practices and it made his heart soar just a little every time you waved with a smile. Eventually, that got him talking to you and you noticed he started being more specific about his goals and ambitions for his swimming career. You quickly picked up the potential that Prosciutto always talked about regarding Pesci, truly, he was a gifted swimmer but his hard work pays off the most.

Pesci loves the butterfly stroke above all else. It's the first stroke he learned from a family member and honed his skills until it became his strongest. It gave him the biceps that he now shows off sometimes. He's pretty agile with the stroke as well but he doesn't cower from competing in other styles.

Pesci is another member who loves team sports and gets the most excited for medley relays with his team. Prosciutto and Risotto motivate him the most before the races and he's always the first to arrive out of excitement of having the team together. But most of all, he loves to hang out together with the team to celebrate afterwards.

#la squadra x reader #prosciutto x reader #pesci x reader #sorbet x gelato #gelato x reader #sorbet x reader #prosciutto #pesci #sorbet #gelato #sid writes #hcs #answered #anonymous #fluff #risotto x reader #risotto #risotto nero

[strangesickness]

what if i wrote an IT competitive swimming AU... what then...

i have so many fic ideas and so little time... in the meantime... the losers as competitive swimmers (this is so niche oh my god)

lots of hyperspecific headcanons can be found under the cut lol

mike hanlon: he's a butterflyer mainly but also strong in backstroke. weirdly good at counting his strokes and has never hit his head going into the wall on backstroke. his favorite race is the 100 fly, but he's not the type to complain when his coach puts him in the 200 fly or an IM race (IM is individual medley, it means all the strokes back to back in one race). he brings snacks to share at competitions but doesn't let anyone eat on deck. got into competitive swimming fairly late (about 14) because he enjoyed doing the distance swim when he was getting his lifeguard qualifications. he's a strong swimmer and probably has the most endurance out of the group, but not in a long distance race kinda way, more in a "i could swim across the lake if push comes to shove" kinda way. he's the only one who can correctly keep track of what rep they're on during training, everyone else always turns to him when asked.

bill denbrough: he's been with the swim club since he was seven and has basically always been a freestyle (basically the same as frontcrawl, except you can technically do whatever you want. everyone does frontcrawl though) sprinter. excels at the 50m freestyle sprint and broke the club record for it when he was seventeen. he leads warmup and organizes everyone for cheers and travel competitions. dislikes breaststroke but is frustratingly good at it so his coach frequently makes him swim it. can't stop hitting his head on the wall on backstroke and has been banned from doing crossover turns (special turn between backstroke and breaststroke used in IM, your face gets very close to the wall) in races after an unfortunate incident involving his face and the wall. he's responsible for drawing mini heat sheets (packets of paper with all of the race information, including athlete names and lanes) on everyones arms, he does a little grid too, its all very professional. he is the keeper of the spare caps and goggles. when they were younger he kept track of everyone during warm-up to ensure no one got trampled in the mess of people.

stanley uris: backstroker through and through, wishes there was a 400m backstroke, once his coach put him in the 400m freestyle and he did backstroke out of spite. his best race is the 200 backstroke. he takes every opportunity presented to him to talk shit about butterfly. makes sure the losers don't miss their races and is the only person allowed to touch the heat sheet. you know he cares because he highlights all the losers names in colorcoded markers on his heat sheet. he's not here to be the best he's just here to humble richie at backstroke and have fun with his friends. he gets split times for the other losers and keeps track of everyones personal best and qualifying times. he complains his friends are the ones always nearly missing their races but he has been known to get distracted highlighting everyones names on the heat sheets when he really should be warming up.

beverly marsh: good at every stroke so mainly an IMer but she's a big fan of 200m races which disturbs everyone around her (200m races are detested by many for being an awkward distance between a sprint and long distance). is really good at dives and turns and has on more than one occasion gotten disqualified for going too far under water off the dive. has an extremely powerful kick but frequently forgets to put strength into her pulls. if richie's doing backstroke in an edge lane she will lean over the edge of the pool and mimic kicking with her arms ("kick faster!") because she knows he hates it. has planned 99% of team building exercises which always go terribly wrong in some way but she finds a way to save them from disaster. past team building activities have included: laser tag, bowling, and tracking down a ghost house in the middle of the woods. this last one was not well received but they did find the house so she won.

ben hanscom: long distance swimming legend, he's a freestyler and his best race is the 1500m. incredible at knowing what pace to go and recognizing how much energy he has left so he doesn't go too slow off the start but doesn't die in the first half either. is strongest in the third quarter of a race and tends to overtake people during this period because he doesn't let the pressure get to him (the third quarter is typically the hardest and most stressful of the race, you are tired and likely in pain, but don't yet have the adrenaline rush from being in the final stretch). he used to crash and burn during the third quarter, but one day something just kind of clicked and he got it. he still gets nervous before races but when he's in the water he doesn't falter. he always gets the best spots at meets and the losers build bag forts in the bleachers to camp out in for the long stretches between races. he also always finds the best places to hangout outside the pool deck while the losers are waiting for finals to start.

richie tozier: mainly a flyer but he got really tall when he was sixteen and his coach started putting him in more backstroke races, he's pretty even between the two strokes at this point and does a lot of IM. number one breaststroke hater in the WORLD, it hurts his knees because he does it wrong but no matter what corrections people make he can't get it right. does not understand how people like breaststroke and isn't convinced it doesn't hurt for everybody. cheers a ridiculous amount. his voice is always hoarse for days after a competition because he cheers so loudly. he's always leading group cheers, even when he was a crackly-voiced 13 year old he was insisting he lead cheers. he's really loud because of it and is great at throwing his voice over the noise of the pool. they're always at races until the very end because ben is usually in the 1500 and richie will cheer for nearly 19 minutes until all the losers are rushing to the end of ben's lane to get him water and help him stay standing and richie can just give him a thumbs up because his voice is totally gone.

eddie kaspbrak: was a breaststroker for most of his life until one day his coach was like. yknow what. fuck you. butterfly time. and now he's a flyer. his best race is the 200IM though and he hates 200m fly. he gets really in his head about it and has on multiple occasions completely died in the third quarter because he's so anxious. he always gets out of the pool after 200m flys feeling like he's going to black out because he's so stressed about it. every once in a blue moon though he just doesn't stress for some unknown reason and does amazing. loses his mind at the losers when they don't wear flipflops on deck or in the showers. like do they know how gross pool decks are? no they want infections? if they're doing single length sprints during practice the other losers will walk his flip flops to the other end of the pool so he doesn't have to touch the deck with his bare feet. you would think swimming would be the most miserable sport in the world for him due to the general... disgustingness... of pools but he loves the sport so much that it manages to outweigh his neuroses most of the time. hates backstroke, its a stupid stroke and he keeps getting water up his nose and what if he hits his head, why do mike, stan, and richie even stand it?

also i did my best to explain anything that might be unintelligible if you weren't deep in the trenches of competitive swimming as a teenager but if anyone has questions, either about the AU, or just clarifications about swim racing in general, feel free to ask! i love talking about this stuff.

#this is so self indulgent #audience for this post: me #i obviously based a lot of this on my own experience so it might not track to other swimmers lol #will need to make a separate post for richie and eddie in this AU because it will get long because they're actually insufferable. #it 2017 #it 2019 #it stephen king #it chapter 2 #it chapter two #mike hanlon #bill denbrough #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #stanley uris #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #posts afflicted with a strange sickness #red's ramblings

[urbanflorals]

I just went and did some swimming today (when i say swimming i mean like freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke butterfly) and oml i haven't swum like that in like 3yrs and i was still rlly good lol. I haven't touched my old swimming goggles in 3yrs and i did 50m of BUTTERFLY. gosh -

#ems rambles #it reminded me of why i love swimming and hate it at the same time

[thatssosussex]

Day 6 of the Invictus Games 2023 (9/15/23). The last day. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the Swimming Medals Ceremony in Invictus village. They presented medals to the 50m and 100m freestyle swimmers.

#harry and meghan #meghan and harry #duchess of sussex #meghan markle #duchess meghan #the sussexes #duke and duchess of sussex #princess meghan #prince harry #duke of sussex #prince harry duke of sussex #meghan the duchess of sussex #invictus games 2023 #heart of invictus #invictus #invictus games #ig23 #swimming #cute couple #affection #hand holding #dusseldorf #germany

[hurricanewindattack]

Today I did 50m freestyle swimming in 2 breaths!

Almost back to the level I had before the vacation, by the end of the year I might be able to do it without breathing!

#swimming

[supertreecollectorfan]

Inge de Bruijn, Dutch swimmer (Olympic gold 50m freestyle 2000, 04; 100m freestyle & 100m butterfly 2000; World C'ship gold x 5), born in Barendrecht, Netherlands

#today50yearsago

[viewer-of-many]

Special Olympics completed and I'm finally back home! I got last(6th) place during my first race of the day(25m solo freestyle) and for my second(50m freestyle relay), my group would have won, but we got DQed because one of my teammates touched the bottom of the pool.

[flash22]

#autumn! #music #SoundCloud

[brckenoncs]

(—) ★ spotted!! MICAH KENNEDY on the cover of this week’s most recent tabloid! many say that the 22 year old looks like HERO FIENNES TIFFIN, but i don’t really see it. while  the RETIRED ATHLETE/REALITY TV STAR is known for being AMBITIOUS my inside sources say that they have a tendency to be ALOOF i swear, every time i think of them, i hear the song LOSING MY RELIGION by R.E.M  { he/him, cismale}

the statistics

name: Micah Kennedy age: Twenty-One dob: April 1, 2002 gender: Cismale sexuality: Pansexual occupation: Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist for 50m Freestyle - 2020 Olympic Games, Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist for 100m Freestyle - 2020 Olympic Games, Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist for 100m Butterfly - 2020 Olympic Games, Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist for 4x100m Medley - 2020 Olympic Games,  Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist for 4x100m Freestyle - 2020 Olympic Games Reality TV Star - Current, Pianist - Current parents: Jordana Kennedy, unknown father siblings: Madeline Kennedy (twin, 21), Wednesday Kennedy (5) swimming career claim: Caeleb Dressel (minus the Rio de Janeiro Games)

the history

Growing up on camera would have thought to have made a bigger impact on Micah’s life than he let it. From a young age he was trained to have no qualms of the spotlight and made zero fuss when it came to his family’s hit reality tv show. To him, it was just another day at home.

At three years old, no one could keep him out of the ocean. His fascination with swimming and the water was unexplainable but it wasn’t long before he was enrolled in private swimming lessons.

At five years old he made the resolution to go to the Olympics and spent his entire life training to do so. It was amazing when he qualified for the 2020 Olympics at only 17 years old and even more of an accomplishment when he went on to win 5 gold medals, adding him to the list of only four other Americans to win that many in one Olympic Games. Also became the first male swimmer to win gold medals in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle and the 100m butterfly in the same games. 

tw: car accident In July of this last year, Micah was out with his sister at a party. She had gotten a bit out of control and Micah jumped into the car with her to stop her from driving away. She did so anyways and ended up crashing it. Micah ended up having to have surgery on his knee, which got completely twisted around during the accident, and his shoulder suffered a tear in his rotator cuff. The doctors had identified that the shoulder problem had been ongoing for a while, just escalated from the accident, but thus confirmed that he would need years of physical therapy to be able to walk normally again and couldn’t clear him to compete in swimming any longer – ending the career he spent his entire life working towards.

This pushed the already recluse of the Kennedy family further into a hole, finding it hard to get out of bed. The best therapy – both physically and mentally – was started and Micah tried to get back to his life as little as he could.

His therapist suggested picking up a hobby and piano seemed to be the only thing that stuck. Now all of his time is dedicated to mastering the skill and trying to grow from there. 

Though he doesn’t state it, Micah is resentful of both his sister and being a Kennedy. He loves his family, truly and dearly, he doesn’t understand how she could put either of them into the situation and why this was the one thing that his family name couldn’t solve. He had tried to make a name on his own and it was thrown back into his face.

updated information ( TW pregnancy, TW NICU , TW depression , TW suicidal thoughts ): after his accident, Micah spent weeks trying to get around feeling like he didn't belong. imposter syndrome overtook him as he felt as though he didn't fit into the Kennedy mold, was selfish for how he had originally broken up with Melrose Levington, selfish for hurting Archie Sinclair, the whole nine yards. It wasn't until he had a breakdown to his mother, Jordana Kennedy, who helped him get into a therapist and into programs -- which worked for a little while. That was until he found out that Melrose was pregnant and after a paternity test it was found that he was the father of her unborn child. After a rather easy pregnancy, their daughter was born suddenly months early and little miss Juniper Levington-Kennedy has been in the NICU fighting for her life.

#hillzintro

[theivorlegov1]

Swimming Men's 50m Freestyle - S7 Timed Final | 8th ASEAN Para Games 2015

#youtube

[aromanticmara]

IM SO NERVYYYYYYYYY‼️ here r my events today

50m breastroke in the relay

200m IM

500m freestyle

#aghhh #i am so not happy 👍 #meg talks #swim tag

[female-malice]

Swimming — like most sports at elite level — is tough. It demands early starts, long, gruelling hours of training, absolute dedication, and utter, single-minded determination.

You must face down disappointment and criticism and carry on. The mental resilience I developed as an Olympic swimmer — I competed in the 1976, 1980 and 1992 Games — has served me well over the past four years as I have campaigned for fair sport for females in the face of a ferocious campaign by a small but aggressive trans- activist lobby.

They have unleashed horrific, often misogynistic abuse and intimidation on anyone who disagrees with them. They issued threats to me and my children, calling me a ‘transphobe’, a ‘bigot’ and far worse.

I barely worked for three years because trans activists made my life hell. I have many friends in the transgender community, and all I have ever wanted is fairness. But the trans-bullies don’t care about that.

Their aim is to silence me, and anyone else who believes in a level playing field — if you’ll pardon the pun — in sport.

Transgender activists can do or say anything, it seems — no matter how vile — while those who disagree with them are silenced.

But, at last, common sense has prevailed, at least in swimming.

FINA, the world governing body, has passed a policy (with a 71 per cent majority) barring anyone who has experienced male puberty, or who has not transitioned by the age of 12, from elite female competitions. It did so after consulting members of 152 national swimming federations.

I couldn’t be more pleased about this decision, which was welcomed by the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Nadine Dorries, yesterday.

It means that female-born swimmers who dedicate their childhood and youth to reaching the very highest level will no longer face being beaten before they have even begun — not by superior talent or training, but by biology.

Because that is what happens if female athletes are forced to compete against those born male who passed through male puberty before transitioning.

In swimming, the issue was brought to worldwide attention when, earlier this year, Lia Thomas, a transgender American swimmer, was photographed beside swimmers she’d beaten in a race.

The wider public immediately recognised the absurdity of the fact that someone who had been ranked 554th in the country when competing as a man beat three women with Olympic medals.

Why must feelings be allowed to trump biological realities? Whatever happened to equality?

Men and women’s bodies are biologically different from birth. After puberty, when testosterone levels in males increase, these differences are multiplied and magnified, permanently.

Larger lungs and hearts give biological males more oxygenated blood, greater muscle mass, greater bone density — and an overwhelming physical advantage that no amount of testosterone-suppressing drugs will eliminate.

Mediocre biological males will always beat even elite female athletes.

In America there are 13 and 14-year-old boys in the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle who all swim faster than the women’s world record holders in these events.

I have some experience of this, to my cost. In the Olympics, I lost out to swimmers representing what was then East Germany who had been dosed with testosterone by their coaches, giving them on average a nine per cent advantage.

In Moscow in 1980 I was beaten to gold by Petra Schneider, who later admitted to taking testosterone.

Without it, she would have been 17 seconds behind me. The injustice still smarts.

My father, who was my swimming coach, spoke out against this. Strangely, he was never selected as an international coach despite training Olympic medallists.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) didn’t want to acknowledge the truth. Then, as now, it put politics and money above athletes.

I have more than one friend who came fourth in an Olympic final behind three testosterone-fuelled East German women.

My friends should have got gold, and if they had their lives might have been different, enabling them to build careers on their Olympic success. But today nobody even knows their names.

This injustice is partly why I have committed myself to fighting for fairness in female sport. Nobody stood up for my generation in the 1970s and 1980s.

But my campaign is also fuelled by the many phone calls and emails I have received from young female athletes and their coaches and parents.

Many are desperate: how can they and their families sacrifice so much — training before school and after school, and at weekends, as I did — when they would have no chance of winning against transgender competitors?

The young female athletes themselves cannot speak out. They are barred from doing so by their sports’ governing bodies which, like the IOC, tend to be dominated by men who make decisions behind closed doors, without consulting anyone except the trans lobby.

That is what the IOC did in 2015 when it changed its guidelines to enable anyone who has self-identified as a woman for a year and reduced their testosterone levels to ten nanomoles per litre of blood to compete alongside women.

Until then, you needed to have had surgery and lived as a woman for many years. Almost no one was in that position.

As far as I am aware, no athletes or governing bodies were consulted; nor were any independent scientists.

Despite this week’s victory, the battle is far from over. Incredibly, while FINA has listened to unbiased scientists, FIFA — football’s governing body — has just done the opposite, reversing a decade of hard-won gains for women in football by drawing up regulations suggesting that anyone who identifies as a woman is welcome in the women’s game. They don’t even have to take testosterone suppressants.

This is discriminatory and dangerous — women will be pushed out by biological males who are stronger and faster.

Forcing women and girls to compete against trans athletes who were born male leads not to greater inclusion, as activists claim, but to exclusion. It will push women out of sports, including cricket and rugby, where they have made great strides.

How will they get selected for a team or attract sponsorship if sponsors know they will never win because they are competing against those born male who are bigger, faster and stronger?

Those of us who point out these obvious, scientific facts are vilified.

Yet in a recent Twitter survey of 60,000 respondents — young athletes, parents, coaches and the public — 97 per cent thought that male-born athletes should not compete in female sport.

FINA has done what no other governing body has done. It consulted athletes, coaches and, most importantly, scientists, who were unequivocal: hormone suppressants cannot mitigate against the advantages male puberty brings.

Other sports’ governing bodies must follow FINA in recognising this, otherwise women will be eliminated from competitive sport altogether, turning the clock back a century.

FINA’s decision doesn’t exclude transgender athletes, despite what the trans-bullies claim. FINA is consulting on the possibility of a third category open to anyone, including trans athletes.

And transgender men and non-binary athletes — born female — often opt to compete in women’s competitions, against other biological women (provided they have not taken testosterone), as seen in U.S. college championships and the Tokyo Olympics last year.

Categories have always existed in sport to ensure fairness: we don’t have under-15s competing against under-11s, or heavyweight boxers against bantamweight. It would be dangerous and unequal.

Likewise, Paralympic sport categorises people according to their disability.

Common sense and science must prevail similarly when it comes to trans athletes.

We cannot throw fairness for female athletes under the bus of inclusivity and see female sport destroyed while men’s sport carries on unaffected.

The Government must instruct publicly funded sports’ governing bodies to ensure that girls and women can compete equally — that is, with each other — from the grassroots level upwards.

Otherwise, where will tomorrow’s female Olympians come from?

#holy shit umm... fifa wtf are you doing

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Maddison Elliott

Paralympic swimmer Maddison Elliott was born in 1998 in Newcastle, New South Wales. Elliott was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at the age of four, and began swimming in 2009. She became the youngest Australian Paralympian to win a gold medal at the age of thirteen when she and her teammates won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay. This achievement earned her a Medal of the Order of Australia. At the 2016 Rio games, Elliott won three gold medals and two silver medals. She also became the first female swimmer in the S8 category to swim the 50m freestyle in less than 30 seconds.

#athletes #sports #swimming #women with disabilities #cerebral palsy #australia #Youtube

[thatssosussex]

Day 6 of the Invictus Games 2023 (9/15/23). The last day. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex gave out medals to the winners at the Swimming Medals Ceremony in Invictus village. They presented medals to the 50m and 100m freestyle swimmers.

Meghan & Harry also took a group photo with the German Military & Police, and with a cute little boy.

#meghan markle #duchess of sussex #duchess meghan #princess meghan #meghan duchess of sussex #prince harry #duke of sussex #prince harry duke of sussex #duke and duchess of sussex #meghan and harry #harry and meghan #the sussexes #heart of invictus #invictus games 2023 #invictus games #invictus #ig23 #dusseldorf #germany