Day: August 21, 2024

In this final video, Riley Gaines explains to JDFI contributor Alison Centofante the incident that finally pushed her over the edge. After tying U of Penn’s Lia Thomas – a biological male swimmer on the women’s team – in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Division 1 Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships, an NCAA official pulled her aside. Privately, he told Riley it had been decided that only Thomas would be allowed to hold the winning trophy for photographs.

In this reel, Riley Gaines describes how she watched in horror as Lia Thomas (formerly Will Thomas) began beating Olympic-grade female swimmers by body lengths, event after event, at the 2022 NCAA Division 1 Swimming and Diving Championships.

According to Riley Gaines, everyone (including coaches, other female competitors, and a few sportswriters) believed that, with the situation having been revealed, Will Thomas (a man with mediocre swimming ability and competing with women) would surely be stopped by the NCAA. Well, to Riley’s disbelief, the NCAA saw absolutely nothing wrong with Thomas’s participation, actually calling it “non-negotiable.”

Now ranking in third place in women’s swimming nationwide, Riley Gaines discovers that her main competitor in the path to a national championship in women’s swimming (Riley’s life-long goal) is the University of Pennsylvania’s (U of Penn) Lia Thomas. But in a bone-jarring twist, Miss Thomas is reported in a news article to be Will Thomas, who swam three years on U of Penn’s men’s team before deciding to switch to the women’s team.

Riley Gaines describes to Alison Centofante how she, other female swimmers, and coaches began to see red flags coming from the women’s swimming program at the University of Pennsylvania, as there was an individual there who was winning events – not by tenths of a second but rather by body lengths. You won’t want to miss what follows for Riley. Watch for the next video in this series.

Riley Gaines, American swimming phenom, begins to tell JDFI’s Alison Centofante about the shocking experience that drove her to become a leading advocate for equality and fairness in women’s sports. Don’t miss the next episode in this critically important series.

Alison Centofante, a JDFI contributor, continues her riveting interview with collegiate swimming superstar Riley Gaines. Riley shares her university recruitment story and how she ended up at the University of Kentucky, where she set her sights on a national swimming title and prepared for a career as an oral surgeon. For more of Riley’s amazing journey, watch for the next reel in this series.