Track athlete who lost medal for celebration laments her punishment while trans athlete took girls' titles
California girls' track and field star Clara Adams and her father called out the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) for stripping her of her state title over a celebration while allowing trans athlete AB Hernandez to win two gold medals at the state championship last weekend.
Adams was stripped of her title and disqualified for a celebration that involved her spraying a fire extinguisher on her shoes after winning the girls' 400m.
Meanwhile, Hernandez took first place in high jump and triple jump and second place in long jump, despite President Donald Trump ordering the state to follow his Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports executive order prior to the event.
During an interview on Fox News' "The Will Cain Show" on Wednesday, Adams addressed the controversial comparison between the two athletes' situations.
"It just doesn't add up to me in my head," Adams said, adding that she now also has to potentially worry about a biological male competing against her in the future.
"It's just not fair, and then comparing the situation, it's just like, 'So, what I did was just so not OK and inappropriate that I had to get DQ'd, but this, what is going on over here in the jumps, is appropriate and OK."
Adams' father, David Adams, expressed his stance on the comparison during the interview as well.
"It's being celebrated," he said of Hernandez's victory, saying his family is "lost" on the decision.
"I watched AB Hernandez jump. AB Hernandez is talented. She can jump against those girls, she can jump very well. I watched her jump, I watched myself, I saw it, and they celebrated AB Hernandez on the podium, and Clara was disqualified for having a celebration, so that's where we're kind of lost. Our families are lost on that, we're lost on that right there, we're very lost on that.
"I'm confused now. Do I have to worry about AB Hernandez jumping into the 400m next year?"
David Adams also doubled-down on the belief that the decision to revoke his daughter's title was racially motivated.
"I know for a fact that the history of our country when it comes to celebrations, when a White girl celebrates or a White boy celebrates, it's called, 'He's passionate. It's good for the sport. We need this for the sport.' But when a Black girl or Black boy or Brown girl or Brown boy, they celebrate, it's deemed as unprofessional, unsportsmanlike, it's ghetto," he said.
"So why is it OK for one to celebrate but not the other?"
Trump sent a warning to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state last Tuesday, threatening to cut federal funding to the state if a trans athlete competed in the girls' track and field championship.
The CIF responded by amending its rules to accommodate female athletes who finished behind a trans athlete in the three events Hernandez competed in, thus granting them qualification and podium finishes they would have earned had a biologically male athlete not competed in those events.
This resulted in Hernandez having to share podium spots with the female athletes who finished one spot behind Hernandez after the finals on Saturday.
A bipartisan survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found the majority of California residents oppose biological male trans athletes competing in women's sports.
That figure included more than 70% of the state's school parents.
"Most Californians support requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching the sex they were assigned at birth," the poll stated.
"Solid majorities of adults (65%) and likely voters (64%) support requiring that transgender athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with. An overwhelming majority of public school parents (71%) support such a requirement."
Meanwhile, Newsom said he believed trans athletes competing in girls' sports was "deeply unfair" during an episode of his podcast in March.
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