Track Mom Furious Over Male Runner Rising from 172nd Rank to 4th After Switching to Girls' Division
Soren Stark-Chessa was hardly a standout runner when he competed as a boy.
The Maine Coast Waldorf School sophomore ranked around 172nd last year in Maine’s 5K boys’ division.
That has all changed, however, since he decided to start competing as a girl.
“After transitioning,” Fox News reported, “the runner shot up to 4th place in the girls’ division.”
Katherine Collins of Winterport, Maine, the mother of two high school track competitors, called the situation unfair for female athletes.
“Men are bigger, stronger and faster than women,” she told Fox. “Men’s hearts are bigger, their lungs are bigger, their legs have much more muscle mass than women.”
Cheater boy from Freeport, ME Soren Stark-Chessa displaces the 11th placed girl from a medal, as expected.
He finishes the girls race 5th.
Pathetic.
The #MainePrincipalsAssociation are woke morons. pic.twitter.com/DxbIFBgdzl
— Shawn McBreairty 🇺🇸 (@ShawnMcBreairty) September 30, 2023
Stark-Chessa placed fifth last week in Maine’s largest high school cross country meet, but Collins told Fox that “the only reason that this boy did not win the meet on Saturday was because [the region] has some of the strongest female athletes in the nation.”
“If it wasn’t for these top-ranked girls who are faster than most girls in the whole United States, this boy would have won the entire girls’ cross country meet,” she said.
The Maine Principals Association opened the door for male runners to compete against girls with its “gender equity and inclusion policy,” which allows students to participate in sports “in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity.”
However, the policy prohibits such participation if it would “result in an unfair athletic advantage or would present an unacceptable risk of injury to other student athletes.”
“Obviously, there is an unfair advantage, but they’ve allowed this,” Collins said.
A physician who is the father of two Maine high school track athletes also complained about the situation.
“If a boy competing in a sporting event were found to be using performance enhancing drugs, he would be disqualified due to the presumption of unfair competitive advantage,” the father said, according to Your News.
“If instead, that same boy chose to compete as a girl, he would not only not be disqualified due to his enormous presumptive competitive advantage, he would be lauded, feted and applauded.”
Susan Sonntag, the athletic director at Stark-Chessa’s school, dismissed concerns of unfairness.
“We support all our students at Maine Coast Waldorf School, and are proud that our students are given the opportunity to participate in all of our school programs,” she said.
One female Maine cross country runner, who declined to be identified, told Your News, “It is not fair to a female who has trained hard. Males are biologically faster than females. … They need to run under their biological gender.”
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