A transgender athlete scored first place at the Canadian Masters Indoor Championships last weekend.
Athlete Tiffany Newell won the women’s 1500-meter run in Toronto, beating her opponent by a margin of roughly 23%.
Newell finished the race in 307 seconds, leading her opponent by 72 seconds.
The difference between Newell and her opponent was roughly equal to the difference between Newell, 50, and the women’s world record set in 2015 by then-24-year-old Genzebe Dibaba.
Dibaba ran a time of 230 seconds, 77 seconds faster than Newell.
While Newell’s 307-second-finish was more than a minute behind the women’s all-ages world record, it was within ten seconds of a multiple-world-record-setting runner who competes in the middle-ages women’s bracket.
Newell’s 1500m race time fell 10 seconds shy of Kathryn Martin, who holds four world-records in similar running events for women ages 50+.
The news of Newell’s win raised social-media questions about equality.
Respondent Jack Lombardi II said such competition is unfair to women.
Kevin Murray said the news speaks to the gender-equality conversation.
Canadian female athletes recently rejected the idea transgender athletes should compete against them.
True North reported 91.7% of female athletes interviewed said women should have the right to dedicated women’s leagues, and 88% said transwomen have a competitive advantage over women.
