Mother of Lia Thomas opponent reveals emotional toll that drove her to raise funds for women's sports lawsuits

ICONS founders Kim Jones and Marshi Smith recount their experience during the 2022 women's swimming season, which centered on Lia Thomas, and how that led them to founding a group to fight on the issues.

Before Lia Thomas' infamous tie with Riley Gaines at the 2022 NCAA championships, the women's swimmers of the Ivy League and their families witnessed the impact that the former University of Pennsylvania swimmer had on the sport – up close.

In a regular-season tri-meet against Yale and Dartmouth on Jan. 8, 2022, Thomas won the 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle. 

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Lia Thomas of the University of Pennsylvania competes in a freestyle event against Yale and Dartmouth at Sheerr Pool on Penn's campus on Jan. 8, 2022, in Philadelphia. (Hunter Martin/Getty Images)

That was the first time Kim Jones, mother of former Yale women's swimmer Raime Jones, saw Thomas swim in person. 

"Oh my gosh, I can't, I mean, he was huge. It felt like a joke," Kim Jones told Fox News Digital. "It took everything I had inside, not to cry… you think someone is going to put a stop to this nonsense, and then watch it unfold, it felt like the Twilight Zone."

Jones and her daughter both knew Thomas would be at the meet going into it. But then, seeing it play out in real-time set off an emotional reaction from the whole family. 

"My daughter, she was super upset. She'd spent days preparing to face a man," Jones said. "My daughter was 6 feet tall and broad-shouldered, very athletic, and he just utterly dwarfed her, both in the width of his shoulders and in his height."

"No one thought it was real, but no one could stop it. You just felt like you were watching a runaway train and I remember walking out of