World News for Students of English

28-06-2021 07:00

Laurel Hubbard will become the first transgender athlete to compete at the Tokyo Olympics after being selected by New Zealand for the national team.

Hubbard will compete in the super heavyweight category, and her selection’s likely to reignite the debate over inclusion and fairness of transgender athletes competing in sports. However, according to the president of New Zealand’s Olympic weightlifting team, Hubbard’s met all the required criteria, and she’s a very dedicated and resilient athlete.

Hubbard had competed in men’s weightlifting competitions before transitioning eight years ago. Since 2015, she’s been eligible to compete at the Olympics after new guidelines were issued. They say that any transgender athlete can compete as a woman provided her testosterone levels are below 10 nanomoles per liter for at least 12 months before the first competition. However, some scientists argue that the guidelines do little to lessen the biological advantages of those who’ve gone through puberty as males and are therefore bigger or taller.

Difficult words: reignite (to start an intense fight or argument again), transition (the process of changing from one state or condition to another), nanomole (the unit of amount of substance equal to one billionth of a mole).

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