A transgender weightlifter, Laurel Hubbard, was able to take two two gold medals and a silver medal in the previous Pacific Games women’s competition in Samoa. Laurel Hubbard is a biological male from New Zealand who already won two silver medals in a women’s world championship two years ago.
The Pacific Games site said that Hubbard, was the first amongst all women in the +89k snatch, for the participants were weighing 196 pounds or above, and the overall women’s +89k. And Hubbard has also won the silver medal in the women’s +89k clean and jerk.
Stuff reported that the 41-year-old Hubbard is now trying to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after his Saturday medals at the Apia’s Faleata Sports Complex. And he is now the Commonwealth senior champion, Oceania senior champion, and the Pacific Games senior champion.
What else do we know about Laurel Hubbard?
Stuff said that Hubbard has already represented New Zealand as Gavin Hubbard six years ago, before his gender transition.
Hubbard was able to recover from ruptured elbow ligament while he was attempting a 291-pound lift at Commonwealth Games in 2018. Although, he thought that his injury will be the reason that ends his weightlifting career.
What is people’s opinion about Hubbard?
Michael Keelan, Australian Weightlifting Federation chief and executive told Fox Sports that Hubbard’s presence among female competitors, is creating an uneven playing field, and says furthermore, “We’re in a sport which is normally related to masculine tendencies and power, where the one who has the aggression, the right hormones, can lift bigger weights.”
Egyptian national team’s coach, Mohamed Hosnytaha, wasn’t pleasant about Hubbard competing again after the women’s world championship two years ago as a woman.
Hosnytaha told Stuff that this situation is simply not fair, “We didn’t agree to compete against somebody who was a man for a long time, who has different hormones feelings from women,”
Stuff noted that Hubbard was also charged with careless driving, for he caused an injury to an Australian couple in their 60s by hitting their vehicle after attempting an uncontrolled sideways movement on a sharp bend near Queenstown on October the 24th, 2018.
The outlet said that the case couldn’t be reported for Hubbard was successful at applying for suppression orders at each of the five stages of the court process. But the High Court in Invercargill, overturned the suppression orders this week after an appeal by Stuff.
Stuff said, that Hubbard pleaded guilty in January this year, and he offered to pay $13,000 to the old couple, including $1,000 for the emotional harm he caused them.
The outlet also reported, that the male driver spent two weeks in the hospital and needed a serious spinal surgery on returning to Australia,
Anything else?
Mary Gregory of the United States, Another transgender weightlifter who was born a biological male, was stripped of his four world-record titles this year and said that a separate category for transgender athletes would amount to “discrimination.”
