For the first time in maybe forever, the women’s NCAA swimming championships supplanted March Madness as the dominant sports news story for at least 24 hours.

But, the men’s NCAA tournament wasn’t dunked on by the women’s meet because fans decided it was a more entertaining or athletically appealing event. Oh no, the women’s tournament jumped up on the news cycle because a man decided to jump into the pool and dominate his female opponents with his natural, male physiological advantages.

On Thursday, transgender UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, who is a man, lapped the competition in the “women’s” 500-yard freestyle.

It was the human, aquatic version of Secretariat’s tour de force at the 1973 Belmont Stakes. A statement of dominance so complete it left no doubt who the best competitor in the field was. Though, unlike Thomas, Secretariat wasn’t an altogether different physiological specimen than his competitors.

ESPN celebrated Thomas’s “achievement” as if nothing was strange or wrong about a man with inherently dominant physical advantages wiping out a field of female swimmers.

But, if ESPN or anyone else seal-clapping for Thomas had really been paying attention, they wouldn’t have been celebrating Thomas’ win. Instead, they would have been lamenting it. Because his real achievement in the pool that day wasn’t beating his physically weaker opponents, it was destroying the entire concept that testosterone therapy can mitigate the physical advantages men have over women in sports.

For years, the NCAA has mandated testosterone therapy as a way of ensuring a level playing field for male competitors seeking to play in women’s sports. But here’s the thing: Thomas has been taking testosterone blockers. He’s been doing it for some time now.

And yet, look at what Thomas was able to do on Thursday. He beat not one, not two, but three female OLYMPIC swimmers. Thomas, who was ranked 462nd among male swimmers and wouldn’t get to the Olympics unless he bought a ticket, beat Emma Weyant, who won a silver medal in an Olympic individual event. He beat Erica Sullivan, another Olympic silver medalist. Plus, he beat Brooke Forde, a member of the U.S. Olympic silver medal-winning team in 2020.

Thomas proved what sports scientists such as Ross Tucker have been saying: even an average male athlete on T therapy will be dominant against female athletes.

And again, not just win, but win against the very best female competition in the world. What Lia Thomas proved beyond a shadow of a doubt is that he is a man, because no female swimmer on Earth could have taken the equivalent amount of blockers he took and dominated a field full of Olympians the way he did.

The only human who could have done that is a specimen with inherent advantages in size, musculature, bone structure, and heart and lung capacity that cannot be diminished by hormone therapy.

In other words, a man.

So Lia Thomas is an absolute fraud of a woman because he is demonstrably a man. But it gets worse. He’s also a fraud of an athlete. Because something very odd started happening after Thomas left a field full of Olympians in his manly wake: He started losing.

And not just losing, but losing pretty badly.

Thomas placed fifth in the 200-yard freestyle after crushing the 500-yard freestyle the day before. He was also ignored by pretty much everyone when he got out of the pool.

But wait, there’s more! On Saturday, Thomas also lost in the 100-yard free, coming in dead last.

As Breitbart’s Paul Bois reported:

Thomas lost to Virginia freshman Gretchen Walsh, who reportedly set a new pool and program record by finishing first place with a time of 46.06. Alabama senior Morgan Scott came in second with a time of 46.78, followed by North Carolina State junior Katherine Berkoff with a time of 46.95.

Thomas, who set a program record last Thursday in the 500 free, came in dead last with a time of 48.18 after having entered ‘the finals with the fourth-fastest time,’ according to Fox News.

Hmm. What could account for an athlete setting a record and smashing Olympians in the 500-yard free on Thursday, then turning around and losing two shorter events in the same stroke in the next two days, including one performance where he placed dead last?

I’m not in the business of making unprovable accusations, but someone who is might reasonably conclude that after shocking the world on Thursday, Lia Thomas intentionally lost two races to try and prove that T therapy works and he doesn’t have inherent physical advantages over women.

And is that without precedent?

As Bois reported, Thomas had another inexplicable loss to a trans swimmer transitioning from female to male in January. Moreover, speaking on condition of anonymity, Thomas’ own teammates say they thought she was cheating:

In January, after a string of victories put him on a path to winning the championship, Lia Thomas inexplicably lost to Yale transgender swimmer Iszac Henig at UPenn’s tri-meet with the Yale and Dartmouth swim teams. Henig is a biological woman currently transitioning to live as a man. Though she had her breasts removed, she reportedly delayed hormone treatments to compete in women’s swimming before graduation.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a teammate of Thomas claimed that the two conspired with each other as a way to hit back at anti-trans critics.

‘Looking at [Lia’s] time, I don’t think she was trying,’ the Penn swimmer told OutKick. ‘I know they’re friends, and I know they were talking before the meet. I think she let her win to prove the point that, ‘Oh see, a female-to-male beat me.’

Trying to assess all the damage Lia Thomas has done to sports and, more importantly, women’s rights, is a daunting task. Deciding to call yourself a woman so you can be the dominant swimmer you tried and failed to become as a man is bad. Ruining the history of women’s sports by shattering the records of past female athletes and crushing the dreams of 19-year-old girls who worked their whole lives to have a chance to win an NCAA championship is even worse. But, then, thinking so little of the sport and yourself to (probably) throw races to make a political point is just the icing on a very, very bad piece of cake.

NCAA swimming clearly isn’t “MAGA country,” but what Thomas has perpetrated here is just as big a hoax and a fraud as anything Jussie Smollett did in the streets of Chicago. Except, unlike in Jussie’s case, there are real victims here. There are records set by women that will be forever scrubbed from the books. There are women who lost races they should have won. Plus, there are women who never got to compete at all because a man decided to call himself a woman and took their spot.

Lia “Jussie” Thomas is a fraud as a woman and human being. And no amount of therapy or “blockers” will ever change that.