Penn swimmer says Lia Thomas' participation 'ruins the integrity of the sport' ahead of NCAA championship

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University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas is set to participate in the 2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, but one teammate told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that she fears the impact of her participation has "completely ruined the integrity of the sport." 

The student, who spoke to Fox News on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, spoke highly of her team’s accomplishments at the Ivy League Championships in Cambridge, Massachusetts, last month but expressed her disappointment in the decisions that allowed Thomas, a 22-year-old transgender woman who competed on the men’s team for three seasons, to compete against women with record-breaking performances. 

"It’s not necessarily an achievement in my mind," she said. "Women's records are separate from men’s records. It’s its own distinct category because no woman is going to be as fast as a man, and here is just completely – we’re just throwing away the definition of a record to fit into someone else's agenda of what it should mean to them when in reality it makes no scientific sense to do so." 

2022 NCAA WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS: LIA THOMAS FAVORITE TO WIN 200, 500 FREESTYLE

Lia Thomas of the Pennsylvania Quakers after winning the 500-meter freestyle event during a tri-meet against the Yale Bulldogs and the Dartmouth Big Green at Sheerr Pool on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania on Jan. 8, 2022, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  (Hunter Martin/Getty Images)

Thomas is one of 322 athletes who qualified for the men’s and women’s championships this week after securing several records at the Ivy League Championships last