A L
k
at Gertrude Ederle
"People said women couldn't
swim the Channel
but I proved they could"
--Ederle
Ederle, Gertrude Caroline (1906-...)
Gertrude Ederle, a famous American swimmer, became the first woman to
swim the English Channel.
In 1926, at the age of 19, Ederle swam the channel from
France to England. Her time
of 14 hours 39 minutes for the 35-mile (56-kilometer)
distance broke the previous
record and stood as the women's record for 35 years.
From 1921 to 1925, Ederle set 29 United States and world records for swimming
races ranging from the 50-yard
to the half-mile race. In the 1924 Summer Olympic
Games, she won a gold medal
as a member of the championship U.S. 400-meter
freestyle relay team. She
also won bronze medals for finishing third in the
100-meter and 400-meter
freestyle races. Ederle was born in New York City.
 |
Before Ederle, then 19, set out
to tackle swimming's Everest, only five men had successfully completed
the Channel swim. On August 6, 1926, nearly one year after she was dragged
from the same icy, gray waters during a previous attempt, Ederle plunged
into the water at Cape Gris-Nez in France at 7:08 a.m. By mid-afternoon
she was being pelted by wind, rain and heavy swells. The weather would
force her to swim the equivalent of 35 miles to cover the 21-mile distance.
She reached Kingsdown on the English coast at 9:04 p.m for a time of 14
hours, 31 minutes, shattering the existing record by more than two hours. |
| When Gertrude Ederle returned to
her native New York City following her historic swim across the English
Channel, Mayor James J. Walker likened her feat to Moses parting the Red
Sea, Caesar crossing the Rubicon and Washington crossing the Delaware.
The parade in which she was feted nearly equaled the Mayor's pronouncement
in grandeur: two million people lined lower Broadway to shower America's
newest sporting hero with ticker tape. |
 |
Ederle was among the first real
sports heroines to prove that women were not physically inferior or incapable
of strenuous activity. Her record-breaking times, beginning with the twenty-one
mile race from the Battery to Sandy Hook and ending with her Channel swim,
clearly proved that women were not physically inferior to men. With determination
and hard work, she illustrated the potential for women who practiced hard
and maintained their dedication. Her twenty-nine national and world records
demonstrated that women were fully capable of achieving great prowess in
competitive sports. The accomplishments of Gertrude Ederle will always
serve as evidence for the endless possibilities for women in sports.
Some Interesting Links about Gertrude
Ederle...
Click
here to find out about Gertrude Ederle's place in sports history,
as
well as a list of other women's "firsts" in the sports world...
Click
here to learn some cool, little-known facts about Gertrude Ederle. You
can also read about the day of her famous swim across the English Channel
...
Click
here to read an in-depth profile of Gertrude Ederle. Find out why
she's been nominated by Sports Illustrated as one of the top 100 female
athletes of the century...
Click
here to see exactly where Gertrude Ederle fits into a timeline of women
in sports history. See how her dedication has allowed for future
female athletes to accomplish countless feats...
Click
here to get to the Autobiography of Gertrude Ederle. Learn
everything from where she was born, her childhood, and how she came to
be such a talented and famous swimmer...
If
you have any questions or comments, 
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to Main Page...
please feel free to e-mail me!!!
This page was created by Melissa Grawburg
for IAH
201, Section 88, Fall Semester 1999
at Michigan State
University
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