A transgender athlete swept all three jumping events at the CIF Southern Section Division 3 track and field finals on Saturday, and California officials responded by redesigning the podium ceremony after the fact.
AB Hernandez of Jurupa Valley High School took first place in the long jump, high jump, and triple jump. In one event, the margin of victory was more than a foot.
Under a pilot rule enacted last year, announcers declared co-champions during the podium ceremonies. In the high jump, Hernandez shared the top podium spot with the highest-finishing female athlete.
Trans athlete AB Hernandez beat the field in the girls’ long jump by over a foot.
Officials split the first-place podium in half to make the optics look fair.
If you have to redesign the ceremony afterward, maybe the competition wasn’t fair to begin with. pic.twitter.com/ZNLwcGi3Qe
— OutKick (@Outkick) May 16, 2026
The workaround varied across the three events, according to observers at the meet.
In every other event, officials announced only the first-place finisher. For the events Hernandez won, they announced both first and second place.
Think about what that means for the girls standing on that podium. The system could not bring itself to say a biological male had an unfair advantage, so it invented a consolation ritual instead.
Fox News / OutKick reported that the pilot program was created after Hernandez advanced to the state final last year and after President Donald Trump publicly criticized California and Governor Gavin Newsom over allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports.
AB Hernandez of Jurupa Valley High School took first place in the long jump, high jump, and triple jump at the CIF Southern Section Division 3 finals.
The podium handling came from a pilot rule enacted last year. Under that rule, announcers declared co-champions during the ceremonies even though Hernandez had won the events on the field of competition.
In high jump, Hernandez shared the top podium spot with Oak Park High School’s Gwynneth Mureika after winning the event by two inches.
In long jump, Moorpark High School’s Gianna Gonzalez stood on the first-place podium after finishing more than a foot behind Hernandez.
The postseason stakes continue from here. Hernandez and the other winners advanced toward CIF preliminaries.
California’s two-day state finals are scheduled to begin May 29 in Clovis, which means this controversy is still moving toward a bigger stage.
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That is the core of this story. California did not fix the policy.
It fixed the ceremony.
Hernandez and the other top finishers have now advanced toward CIF preliminaries, with the two-day state finals set to begin May 29 in Clovis, California. The same controversy is heading to a bigger stage.
MALE athlete just stole 1st in GIRLS’ long, high, & triple jump in CIF SS Finals@CIFState@CAgovernor have continued to allow males invade girls’ spaces
Every other event they only announced 1st place, yet for these events they announced 1st & 2nd…. pic.twitter.com/ZKVfKmqr7G
— Sophia Lorey (@SophiaSLorey) May 16, 2026
As Breitbart noted, the podium decision drew immediate backlash online.
The podium decision after Hernandez dominated the finals drew immediate online backlash because it showed California trying to manage the optics of the result.
The core issue critics seized on was simple: officials did not change the eligibility policy, and they did not undo the competitive advantage concern.
They changed how winners were recognized once the results were already in.
ADVERTISEMENTThat left female athletes with a strange compromise. They could be listed or recognized as co-champions in some settings.
The underlying competition still placed them behind Hernandez, and the controversy now follows the field into the next stage of California’s postseason.
That is why the story resonated beyond one meet. The workaround looked less like fairness and more like damage control.
It also gave critics a clear visual symbol: the podium itself had to be adjusted because the policy produced a result officials knew would be hard to defend.
For parents and athletes watching the meet, that visual mattered because it turned an abstract policy fight into a scene everyone could understand immediately.
President Trump has already weighed in on California’s transgender sports policies. Newsom has ignored him.
The girls who trained all season for a shot at a state championship are left navigating a system that treats their competitive reality as a PR problem to be managed.
No co-champion banner changes the fact that one athlete had an undeniable biological advantage on that track Saturday. Every official who approved this workaround knows it.
The girls who lost know it. Every parent in the stands knew it.
California did not protect those girls. It protected itself from the optics of not protecting them.
That is the difference, and it is the whole story.
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