Open unabashed cheating

Another successful theft of athletic glory:

Kiwi weightlifter Laurel Hubbard has won gold at the Pacific Games in Samoa…

Hubbard, a transgender athlete who is trying to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, won gold medals at Apia’s Faleata Sports Complex to become the Oceania senior champion, the Commonwealth senior champion, and the Pacific Games senior champion.

The 41-year-old won with a total lift of 268kg in the women’s 87kg category on Saturday. Samoans Feagaiga Stowers and Iuniana Sipaia took home silver and bronze with respective lifts of 261kg and 255kg.

In other words a 41-year-old man competed against women in weight-lifting and thus stole a gold medal from Feagaiga Stowers and a silver medal from Iuniana Sipaia. And the story carefully says nothing about that – the story carefully pretends it’s all perfectly normal and fair and what everyone wants.

Hubbard wants to be on New Zealand’s Olympics team in 2020. These competitions are a necessary path to that. If Hubbard gets a place on the team that will mean a woman loses her place to him.

https://twitter.com/nzolympics/status/1149879157465108483

The 439 people talking about this are not doing so with warm congratulations for “Laurel” Hubbard.

Many are pointing out the non-celebratory demeanor of Stowers and Sipaia. The woman who should have been there for winning the bronze is not shown.

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