As with a majority of sports at the Olympics, many of the top athletes in swimming starred in the NCAA before making their names on the Olympic stage.
Team USA standouts such as Caeleb Dressel, Kate Douglass and Natalie Coughlin all starred on the collegiate scene before jumping to the highest ranks of international competition.
One of the most talked-about collegiate swimmers in the past few years is Lia Thomas. A transgender athlete, Thomas made headlines as a swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania, starting on the men's team before transitioning to the women's team.
She became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA title in 2022, beating out an Olympic medalist in the process. While her collegiate career came to an end two years ago, Thomas aimed to continue swimming and to compete for a spot on Team USA for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
That did not come to fruition, and Thomas is not in Paris. Here is more on why Thomas is not competing at the Olympics, as well as more on her background.
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Is Lia Thomas in the Olympics?
Thomas is not one of the members of Team USA's swimming team for the 2024 Summer Games.
The NCAA standout's omission from the Olympic squad is not necessarily due to a lack of talent. Thomas did not participate in the Team USA swimming trials earlier this year, so it's unclear if she would have performed well enough to make the team.
Thomas was ineligible to swim at the trials due to a ban from World Aquatics.
Why was Lia Thomas banned from women's swimming?
Thomas is banned from swimming in competitions due to a 2022 ruling by World Aquatics that prohibits transgender women who have been through male puberty from competing in women’s races.
Ahead of the trials, Thomas challenged the ban in the hopes of competing for a spot on the Olympic squad. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed Thomas’ request for arbitration.
"The panel concludes that [Thomas] lacks standing to challenge the policy and the operational requirements in the framework of the present proceeding," the court said in its ruling .
While Thomas' collegiate career ended in 2022, she continued to train in the hopes of representing the red, white and blue on the biggest international scale. With the CAS's ruling, though, she will have to watch from home with the rest of the country as Team USA eyes Olympic gold.
"The CAS decision is deeply disappointing," Thomas said in a statement through her attorney. "Blanket bans preventing trans women from competing are discriminatory and deprive us of valuable athletic opportunities that are central to our identities.
"The CAS decision should be seen as a call to action to all trans women athletes to continue to fight for our dignity and human rights."
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Lia Thomas swimmer ranking
Thomas began her collegiate career in the men's division, then switched to the women's division. That resulted in publications comparing her rankings in the men's and women's competitions.
During the last season Thomas competed as a member of the Penn men’s team (2018-19), she ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. She ranked fifth, first and eighth in those events as a member of the women's team at the end of her collegiate career.
Yet it would be remiss not to mention that she undoubtedly improved as a swimmer throughout her career. She also met hormone therapy requirements to swim on Penn’s women’s team.
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Lia Thomas NCAA championship and records
Thomas made headlines in 2022 when she became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship in any sport. She claimed first place in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:33.24. A second behind her in second place was Olympic silver medallist Emma Weyant.
Thomas did not break any NCAA records in her collegiate career, though she did set multiple school marks at Penn on both the men's and women's teams. Here is a look at those records.
Penn men's swim team records
| Race | Time | Year |
| 500 freestyle | 4:18.72 | 2019 |
| 1000 freestyle | 8:55.75 | 2019 |
| 1650 freestyle | 14:54.76 | 2019 |
Penn women's swim team records
| Race | Time | Year |
| 100 freestyle | 47.37 | 2022 |
| 200 freestyle | 1:41.93 | 2021 |
| 500 freestyle | 4:33.24 | 2022 |
| 1000 freestyle | 9:35.96 | 2021 |
| 1650 freestyle | 15:59.71 | 2021 |
| 400 freestyle relay | 2:01.41 | 2022 |
| 800 freestyle relay | 4:16.14 | 2022 |
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