New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard CRASHES out of Olympics

Shy teen Gavin Hubbard led his school boy’s weightlifting team to glory long before most of his fellow female Olympic competitors were even born.

Today, having gender transitioned and become Laurel Hubbard in 2012, she is hoping to claim a medal for New Zealand in the women’s 87+kg event in Tokyo.

She stunned the world in 2017 when she burst onto the scene after a 16-year hiatus from the sport which she said she had taken up as a boy to appear more masculine before the pressure of living as a man became too much to bear.

Hubbard was born in 1978 to Diana Reader and breakfast cereals tycoon and former Mayor of Auckland Richard ‘Dick’ Hubbard.  

Students from her 1994 graduating class remember her only as ‘Gavin’ – an academic and quiet student who spent most of his days training in the gym at the exclusive $22,000-a-year Saint Kentigern Boys’ College. 

The incredibly-private weightlifter was shy and awkward even then, before turning into a recluse after graduation and reappearing more than a decade later as Laurel. 

The athlete, pictured left before undergoing her transition, previously competed in men’s weightlifting competitions, setting junior records in 1998. Right: Hubbard on stage during the Women’s +90kg Final during the Weightlifting on day five of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, after he transition

‘I can’t remember Gavin having too many friends at school. He never really seemed to fit in,’ one peer told Daily Mail Australia. 

Gavin captained his high school team to glory, coming first in the 99kg over-16s Junior National Championships and second in the 108kg weight division at the Northern Region Secondary School Championships.

At 20, Hubbard set a junior record in the 105+kg category with a total lift of 300kg.

Hubbard (pictured post-transition) rarely gives interviews but said in 2017 that she just wanted to compete in the sport she loves and had ‘blocked out’ criticism 

However, his successes at junior level would never have been enough to qualify for a spot on the men’s senior national team. 

Despite his high school team’s overall success, Hubbard’s individual results in junior male competitions would never have been enough to qualify for a position on the men’s senior national team. 

Hubbard revealed in a 2017 interview that she started weightlifting as a young man to try and become more masculine, but said ‘sadly that wasn’t the case.’

In 2001, at 23, Hubbard quit the sport as the pressure of living as a man became too much. 

‘It just became too much to bear… the pressure of trying to fit into a world that perhaps wasn’t really set up for people like myself,’ she said.

She transitioned and came out as a woman in her mid 30s – and has been extremely private since.

Then she shocked the sporting world by winning two World Championship silver medals in the 90kg class in California in 2017. 

‘I’m not here to change the world,’ she said after the victory. ‘I just want to be me and do what I do.’ 

The decision to re-enter high profile weightlifting as a woman seemed provocative to many people. 

On top of that, in 2018, she was charged with careless driving causing injury after her car caused a major accident in Queenstown.

She lost control of her vehicle and hit a car carrying an elderly Australian couple, Gary and Sue Wells, giving Mr Wells spinal injuries.

The same year, Australia’s weightlifting federation tried to block Hubbard from competing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast but organisers rejected their claims. 

Hubbard limbering up before practice in Tokyo over the weekend 

Hubbard of New Zealand practices on Saturday in Tokyo as her coach watches on 

Hubbard kept on with her dream and in May it was confirmed that she would qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.

The IOC cleared the way for transgender athletes to compete in Olympic women’s events without gender reassignment surgery in 2015, issuing guidelines that required their testosterone levels be below 10 nanomoles per litre for at least 12 months before their first competition.

Hubbard has not given an interview since she qualified but released a brief statement issued through the IOC last week.

‘I see the Olympic Games as a global celebration of our hopes, ideals and values and I would like to thank the IOC for its commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible,’ she said.

The bookmakers have Hubbard priced at 4/9 to decorate her history-making appearance with a medal, although China‘s Li Wenwen is the favourite to take the Gold. 

She is also making history as the oldest woman to ever compete in the Olympic weightlifting.

Whether or not she stands on the podium, history will be made, but there are many who argue her appearance sets a dangerous precedent and will ultimately damage women’s sport.  

Ro Edge, of Save Women’s Sports Australasia, told Radio 4 this morning: ‘I think it would be really naive and ignorant to think that people will not take advantage of these rules to gain a competitive advantage.

‘We have plenty of examples of how far athletes and nations around the world will go to achieve Olympic glory.’ 

It comes as a petition calling on the IOC to put an end to transgender athletes competing in women’s sport was quietly shelved as ‘hate speech’ ahead of Hubbard’s debut.  

More than 30,000 people signed the letter on change.org which argued Hubbard’s inclusion in the division put her competitors at a significant disadvantage.

But the woman behind the petition was notified via email of the decision. 

‘It was flagged as hate speech,’ a spokeswoman for ‘Defend Women’s Sport’ said.

She has since tried to have the petition reinstated, but is yet to receive a response from change.org. 

The last time Hubbard gave any major interviews were after strong results in 2017, she said she understood why people were unhappy seeing her competing against women – but she hoped they would try to see beyond their ‘gut’ reaction. 

‘As an athlete all I can do is block that out,’ she said, noting that listening to criticism ‘just makes the lifts harder.’

Quiet as she is, it’s obvious Hubbard believes she has every right to compete against other women.

Hubbard said at the time that she doesn’t only meet the current IWF requirements for transgender lifters, she believes she meets the 2003 Stockholm Consensus on Sex Reassignment in Sports.

‘I am not competing under a recent rule change, I’m competing under rules that have been in place [since 2003].’ 

The petition called the International Olympic Committee to reconsider the rules which allowed Hubbard to gain entry into the women’s division in the first place.

As long as Hubbard’s testosterone levels remain below the qualifying amount and she identifies as a woman, she is within regulations to compete.

But the petition argued this policy ignores several other crucial factors and should be reconsidered moving forward. 

‘This completely ignores the physical advantages in speed, height, stamina and strength that a male-born athlete will have,’ the petition read.

‘Women were not consulted and did not consent to this policy which will make a complete mockery of their sport.’ 

By Guy Adams for the Daily Mail 

Alison Perkins turned plenty of heads when she teed off in qualifying for the 149th Open a few weeks back.

It was nothing to do with the blistering drive the 47-year-old golf pro smashed nearly 300 yards down the fairway, bisecting a pair of dangerous bunkers in the process. 

Neither was there anything particularly unusual about the nine over par 81 shots she took to navigate the 18 holes of Hollinwell Golf Club in Nottinghamshire, finishing half-way up the leader-board.

What actually made Alison stand out from the crowd, aside from her fetching navy-blue-and-teal pleated skirt and sleeveless top (by exclusive golfwear designer J. Lindeberg) was the fact that someone called Alison was taking part in the event at all.

The Open is, after all, one of the most prestigious and traditional competitions in men’s golf, with a history stretching back to the Victorian era. Yet Alison, as her name suggests, is very much not a man.

Though born and raised a boy, she has chosen to live as a woman for more than a decade. And on that sunny day in late June, she made a little bit of history: becoming the first ever trans female to compete on the men’s golf circuit.

Alison Perkins (pictured) turned plenty of heads when she teed off in qualifying for the 149th Open a few weeks back at Hollinwell Golf Club in Nottinghamshire

‘It was a brilliant day,’ she recalls, when we meet. ‘The other players were wonderful, one hundred per cent supportive, and I actually ended up beating both my playing partners. 

‘So I feel like I gained some respect for myself. I might be a bit different, and it was the first time this has happened, but I hope that when people saw my score they looked at it and thought ‘good on her’.’

Alison is speaking at a golf academy outside Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, where she coaches clients of all ages in the sport she has loved since first picking up a club at a seaside pitch-and-putt course during a childhood holiday.

She looks immaculate, emerging in a fetching pink ensemble from the bright yellow VW Beetle she uses to commute from Milton Keynes.

‘Do I feel like a better human being now than before I played in The Open? Yes I do! Do I feel like a better golfer? Again, yes! I’ve of course got to carry on training and working hard, but technically, emotionally, everything feels like it’s finally starting to come together.’

Alison is, in other words, in a happy place.

But elsewhere in the world of professional sport, not everything is quite so harmonious. For in this Olympic summer, transgender athletes have been tossed onto the front line of a toxic culture war.

At the centre of hostilities is a 42-year-old weightlifter from New Zealand named Laurel Hubbard, who will go for gold in the women’s +87kg event on Monday.

Born male, she set national records competing in boys’ junior events while growing up, before undergoing hormone therapy and ‘coming out’ as trans in 2013, aged 35. 

Since then, Hubbard has competed in women’s events, making waves on the world stage.

She is now a strong candidate for a podium finish in Monday’s event, where she boasts the fourth highest personal best of the 14 contenders.

To some, her presence in Tokyo is a welcome sign of progress and inclusivity, in keeping with the noblest Olympic ideals.

It’s also perfectly legal: in 2015 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to allow trans women to compete in female events without first undergoing gender reassignment surgery, provided they have taken drugs to suppress their testosterone levels for at least a year.

Yet others view it with deep hostility, arguing the exact opposite: that someone who enjoys all the physical advantages conferred by having undergone male puberty — from increased size and strength to denser bones and larger hearts — can never be considered a remotely equal competitor in most women’s sports.

(In Hubbard’s chosen sport of weightlifting, for example, biological males enjoy a 25 per cent advantage, even after adjusting for muscle size. 

At the last World Championships, in 2019, women in Hubbard’s group needed to lift 311kg to gain a medal and 332kg to win. In the nearest men’s category, the numbers were 371kg and 375kg respectively.)

What made Alison (pictured) stand out was the fact that someone called Alison was taking part. The Open is, after all, one of the most prestigious competitions in men’s golf

These competing world views are — on the face of things — impossible to resolve. Which is perhaps why they have sparked heated debate.

On one side sit the likes of Sharron Davies, the former British swimming champion, who described Hubbard’s selection for the games as ‘another kick in the teeth for women athletes’, and Martina Navratilova, the tennis player, who once described allowing trans athletes to compete in women’s sports as ‘insane and cheating’ (though her views have since evolved).

On the other are the trans athletes themselves, who have accused opponents of ‘fuelling hate’ and in the case of Navratilova, who is gay, lobbied for her to be dropped as an ambassador by various LGBT charities.

Trans issues are also a minefield for TV commentators, who have been accused of ‘mis-gendering’ athletes who choose to be ‘non-binary’ — identifying as neither male or female. 

In skateboarding, BBC pundits were criticised this week for referring to a U.S. competitor named Alana Smith, who was competing in the women’s event, as ‘she’. Though born female, Smith prefers to be referred to as ‘they’.

Life has given golfer Alison an important take on these painful controversies and may one day make her a key figure in resolving them. 

For while her at times very difficult personal journey means she’s intimately aware of the importance of treating trans people with respect, three decades in competitive golf has also given her a keen sense of the virtues of sportsmanship and fairness.

She is therefore troubled by the notion that either might be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness — and by competing in male, rather than female, events she is helping to explore at least one potential compromise.

‘As a transgender person, to say that someone like me can’t compete would be quite cruel, but then to say that they can compete and therefore take a medal off someone who is born female is also unfair, isn’t it?’ she points out.

‘Now, I am sure the Olympic Committees and this person, and New Zealand, have ticked all the boxes and worked out they are allowed to compete under the rules. But it will be so tricky for whoever might finish in second or fourth place behind them.

‘It’s hard to know what is right and we honestly don’t have nearly enough research yet for people to be sure. So we all need to find ways to make this work.’

All of which partly explains why, when she returned to competitive golf this year — after taking a break during her transition — it was not on the women’s tour.

‘Currently, from the information I have, I don’t believe I should compete against girls,’ she says. 

‘At this moment, I can hit a drive about 300 yards [the furthest normally hit by a Ladies Professional Golf Association member is nearer 290], so I don’t think I have power consistent with other women.

‘I would love for it to be fair to me to play with the girls, but as things stand, it’s a case of playing with the guys and seeing what happens.’ 

The other reason for her choice involved the laws governing women’s professional golf.

They were altered in 2010 to remove a clause stipulating that a competitor had to be female at birth; however, players were required to complete reasignment surgery and undergo hormone therapy to reduce testosterone levels in their blood.

In May, 28-year-old Hailey Davidson, originally from Ayrshire, who had undergone surgery four months earlier, became the first trans woman to benefit from this initiative by winning a tour event, at Providence Golf Club in Orlando, Florida.

Alison, who has been living as a woman since July 5, 2010 — she calls this her ‘birthday’ — is yet to take either of the stipulated medical steps, so has not yet experienced the changes wrought by hormone therapy. 

But when she does, she has agreed to take part in a scientific study that will measure the effect on both her physical performance and her golf game.

Alison (pictured) has chosen to live as a woman for more than a decade. And in late June, she made history: becoming the first ever trans female to compete on the men’s golf circuit

It is being carried out by a team at Loughborough University with Joanna Harper, who is perhaps the world’s leading academic expert on the science of trans sports and has advised the IOC. 

By following the performances of Alison and several other athletes as they undergo transition, she hopes to be able to produce reliable data about the benefits they may — or may not — enjoy in various female sports.

This will, she hopes, allow governing bodies to find ways to allow trans athletes to compete without sparking allegations of unfairness. 

‘The goal is that before hormone therapy starts, we get transgender athletes into the sports lab and then do baseline tests on speed, strength and stamina along with sport-specific tests — so in Alison’s case how far she hits a golf ball. Then we repeat them every quarter for 24 months,’ Harper explains.

‘Fair is a nebulous term, and sporting governing bodies are in a very difficult position because they don’t have very much data at all on trans athletes, so must take decisions based on a very limited amount of knowledge. Reaching a resolution will be hard, and may be a 12-14 year process. But you’ve got to start somewhere.’

The whole thing is complicated by the fact that all sports are different and in many, including golf, emotional — as well as physical — strength plays a hugely important role.

Alison’s story illustrates this point very neatly. For most of her career, which began after she qualified as a Professional Golfers’ Association professional in 1999, a sense of anxiety blunted her competitive edge.

‘I’d be brilliant in training, brilliant playing with friends, but when I got to tournaments, something just was not sitting right,’ is how she puts it. She duly focused on coaching.

The only child of a jockey who rode for the Queen and was a contemporary of Lester Piggott, and a secretary, she’d grown up in a comfortable home in rural Cambridgeshire yet struggled with mental health from adolescence.

‘I describe it as being like some kind of burning volcano inside of me. I never felt right in my surroundings. I was always questioning myself, and could get upset very quickly. I often felt very anxious. Whether or not that reduced my performance as a professional sports person, well I think it did.’

She’d begun exploring her identity as a teenager, using it as a coping mechanism after being bullied at school, saying: ‘I needed to get rid of this hurt, this pain, to offload it. And I just thought: ‘OK, let’s become someone else.’ So I wandered into Mum and Dad’s bedroom. There was some stuff on the chair, and I got changed, and then everything that was troubling me went away.’

After leaving school, and beginning her golf apprenticeship, Alison suppressed her feminine side. She even married, in the early 2000s, buying a ‘lovely three-bed’ with her wife in a Cambridgeshire village. 

‘I thought that if I conform to society, these urges, thoughts and problems would just go away,’ she recalls. ‘Hindsight tells me that was never going to happen.’

Alison coaches clients of all ages at Biggleswade in Bedfordshire in the sport she has loved since first picking up a club at a seaside pitch-and-putt course during a childhood holiday

They divorced after three years, and events culminated in a breakdown that saw Alison contemplate suicide and to this day makes discussing her previous life (or even mentioning her childhood name) deeply traumatic.

After psychologists mentioned gender dysphoria (‘I ticked a lot of boxes’) she found herself signing up for a ‘transformation’ at The Boudoir, a London boutique that provides a ‘transgender makeovers’.

‘On the way there, I thought: ‘Hang on, you’re a 36-year-old fully qualified golf professional, who is coaching for the county, playing at a high level, and you’re about to meet someone you don’t know and be made to look like a woman. What are you doing?’

‘But when this curtain went back, and I saw someone in the mirror that wasn’t me any more, it was just overwhelming. An emotional whack in the face. I thought: ‘Oh my God, that’s the real me, and I look OK!’ ‘

In the years that followed, Alison — who ‘came out’ as trans following the deaths of her parents in 2013 — took a step back from competitive golf and moved to Milton Keynes. 

When she found herself cooped up at home during lockdown, she decided to get fit again and return to playing.

‘Lockdown was hard,’ she says. ‘And the only thing that kept me going was that I trained every day, for seven hours.’ 

By the time golf courses re-opened, she was ready to roll. Competing as Alison, and finally at ease with herself, she’s playing some of the best golf of her life.

It hasn’t been plain sailing. She made headlines after suffering transphobic abuse while working in the ‘Swing Zone’ at The Open, an area where spectators can receive coaching (golf’s authorities are investigating).

‘You are going to get nasty stuff from some people. It’s how you respond to it that counts,’ she reflects. ‘I took the decision to walk, because on this occasion it was not worth the fight.’

With transgender sports taking centre stage at the Olympics, her unorthodox career is demonstrating there are far better things to fight for.