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."

"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