"This cheated young women out of well deserved opportunities"- Caitlyn Jenner on transgender athlete winning race in California

Retired American athlete Caitlyn Jenner expressed her displeasure at a transgender athlete competing in the women's category at the Coastal Mountain Conference Championships.

The Coastal Mountain Conference Championships were held on November 8, 2023, at Spring Lake Park in Santa Rosa, California. Athena Ryan, a transgender athlete, competed in the 2.97-mile varsity race against the women.

Ryan hails from Sonoma Academy situated in Santa Rosa and completed the race in 18:56.98. Josie Hill, a cisgender female had to settle in the runner-up position after recording a time of 19:11.76.

Jenner, who has Olympic and Pan American Games gold medals after her name, came out as a trans woman in April 2015. She opined that being a former athlete and a person with knowledge and experience of trans topics, the incident felt unfair.

"As someone that ran track at the most elite levels, while also having an understanding of trans topics especially as related to sport, this is so wrong," Jenner wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

"This cheated young women out of well deserved opportunities that directly impact their ability for scholarships," she added.

The Coastal Mountain Conference Championships is an athletics conference for secondary schools in Mendocino, Lake, Napa, and Sonoma. They compete in the North California Section of the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports in the U.S. state of California.

The Championships are divided into three leagues, of which Sonoma Academy comes under North Central League II.

A look at Caitlyn Jenner's Olympic journey

Caitlyn Jenner looks on during the pro-am prior to the LIV Golf Invitational in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Caitlyn Jenner represented the United States of America in the men's decathlon event at the 1976 Olympic Games held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Jenner competed in the men's event before her gender transition. Before securing her career's first Olympic medal in 1976, she also competed at the 1972 Olympic Games held in Munich, Germany.

Back then, Jenner was known as Bruce Jenner. Not only did Jenner clinched the top position in the men's decathlon but went on to set a new world record by securing a total of 8,617 points. Jenner defeated the previous world record holder, Nikolai Avilov from the Soviet Union. Avilov had secured a gold medal in the event at the 1972 Olympics after setting a world record.

Jenner identified herself as a trans woman in 2015 following her divorce from her third wife Kris Jenner.