British former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies has slammed transgender runner CeCe Telfer’s recent participation in a US women’s track meet, calling it “simply cheating.”
Davies, 61, took aim at the track star after a photo of Telfer, who is in her late 20s, began circulating on social media over the weekend of her prepping to take part in the invitational 60-meter hurdles race at Boston University in February.
“Spot the male athlete in the women’s race! It’s simply cheating,” the ex-Olympian tweeted Sunday alongside a photo of Telfer at the start line with her fellow competitors.
Telfer — who became the first trans woman to win a National Collegiate Athletic Association title in 2019 — qualified for the Boston event’s final but later disqualified herself after a false start, online result records show.
Davies’ reaction to Telfer’s participation came after the Independent Council on Women’s Sports had tweeted footage of the sprinter preparing for the race by jumping up and down at the starting blocks alongside the other hurdlers.
“Telfer, the first openly trans-identifying male to win a women’s NCAA national title in the 400m hurdles (2019), ran unattached. After bumping a female athlete out of the finals, he later disqualified himself during the race,” the group, known as ICONS, wrote in the X post.
Davies, who won a silver medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, has become a vocal critic in recent years about allowing trans women to compete in women’s athletic events.
Her criticism of Telfer was among a slew of tweets she posted in recent days about trans participating in women’s sports, including a Monday tweet in which she vowed to “carry on fighting for sporting equality, for fair, safe sport for females.
“Warning – NOT AN APRIL FOOLS,” Davies wrote. “Today like every other day for the past 8 years I still believe (as do most people) that men/boys who choose to identify as women/girls have an unfair biological advantage in sport (proved by peer reviewed science) which equates to cheating biological females (that’s 51% of us) out of our equal rights of sporting opportunities, very much a career choice today, supposedly protected by sex discrimination law here in the UK.
“Facts cannot be unlawful. This is an insane, destructive, delusional position for any society to take when not one human being has ever changed their biological sex.”
Telfer’s agent did not immediately respond to a Post request for comment Monday.