Trans runner beat 14K women in London Marathon after running NYC as a man
A two-time Olympian has ripped rules that allowed a transgender runner to beat nearly 14,000 women in the female category of the London Marathon.
Mara Yamauchi — who finished sixth in the marathon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics — lashed out after trans racer Glenique Frank, 54, gushed to the BBC about using “girl power” to run the key UK race on Sunday.
“Males in the [female] category is UNFAIR for females,” Yamauchi tweeted alongside a clip of the mid-race interview by the sports bra-wearing runner who also gushed about soon becoming “a gran.”
“Nearly 14,000 actual females suffered a worse finish position [because] of” Frank, wrote Yamauchi — who said that even when she was “ranked second in the world” as a woman, “at least 1300 men ran faster than me.”
She noted how UK Athletics applied World Athletics’ rules on the exclusion of transgender women from elite female competitions at the end of March to make it “fair for athletes who have gone through male puberty to be excluded from the female category in athletics.”
However, it allowed those who had already entered races to still compete in categories that were not their biological sex.
“This male competed under UK Athletics’ transitional arrangements, but it is still wrong and unfair,” Yamauchi told Telegraph Sport.
Cathy Devine, a former lecturer in sport and physical activity at the University of Cumbria, also accused the London Marathon of being “enabling.”
“Zero categories that exclude male performance advantage. Goddess forbid that female runners should have their own category celebrating what women runners can do,” she tweeted.
Frank told The Post Tuesday that she’s competed in the male category in previous marathons — including New York in November — because she was forced to enter under the name and gender that’s listed on her passport.
Follow Us on Facebook – @LadunLiadi; Instagram – @LadunLiadi; Twitter – @LadunLiadi; Youtube – @LadunLiadiTV for updates
