By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam
While we have been celebrating spectacular swims from women’s pool swimmers over the last few weeks, like Kate Douglass shattering the 50 freestyle world record, the 100th anniversary of the first woman to swim the English Channel came earlier this month and the 100th anniversary of the second woman to swim the Channel is today.
On August 6, 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel, completing the “21-mile” feat in 14 hours and 39 minutes, a world record at the time. Since her first crossing more than 100 years ago, 922 women have followed in her footsteps for a total of 1196 crossings.
Today, the average swimmer crosses the Channel in about 13 hours and 30 minutes with the women’s world record being held by Yvetta Hlavacova from Czechia in 7 hours and 25 minutes. While Ederle paved the way for the fastest women, she also paved the way for the slowest because even the longest English Channel swim ever, of 29 hours and 4 minutes, was swum by Sophie Etheridge, a woman following Ederle’s example of strength and perseverance.
Ederle was born on October 23, 1905* in New York in the midst of emerging women’s rights movements. When she was born, many women were not taught to swim at all due to issues involving modesty, and it was illegal in many places for American women to enter the water without covering their legs completely in long wool skirts.
*Ederle was born in 1905 but many early news articles and sources incorrectly cite her birth year as 1906, causing slight confusion about how old she was when she swam the English Channel.
Women called swimming suffragists began campaigning for the right to swim and wear proper swimsuits in the 1910s, and one woman, Charlotte Epstein, became a very active advocate for women’s swimming, starting the Women’s Swimming Association in 1917. In 1920, the United States fielded a women’s Olympic swim team for the first time.
There were only three events for women at the 1920 Olympics: the 100 free, 300 free, and the 4×100 free relay.
Ederle joined Epstein’s association, and in August 1919, she broke her first world record in the 880-yard freestyle at just 13 years old.
She continued to break world records from there, and in 1924 she earned a spot on the United States Olympic Team. At the Games in Paris, she won the bronze medal in the 100 free and 400 free and helped the American women win the 4×100 freestyle relay.
Her first major open water race came in June 1925 when she swam from Battery Park in New York City to Sandy Hook, New Jersey in record time of 7 hours and 11 minutes. You can read the original New York Times article about this swim here. Her record stood until July of 2006 when Australia’s Tammy van Wisse swam the course in 5 hours and 6 minutes.
After that, she began training to swim the English Channel, a feat only five people had accomplished at the time, all of whom were men. The world record stood at 16 hours and 33 minutes set by Enrique Tirabocchi in 1923.
On August 18, 1925, Ederle made her first attempt at the Channel, but she was disqualified after her coach, Jabez Wolffe, ordered another swimmer to get her out of the water despite her disagreement. The English Channel has strict rules for an attempt to be considered an “official swim” and one of them is that athletes cannot be touched by anyone during the race.
It has since been speculated that Wolffe, who had attempted the Channel 22 times in his life and had never accomplished the feat, did not want her to succeed.
Ederle returned to New York after that attempt and began training with Bill Burgess, who had crossed the Channel himself in 1911. While training, she received a salary from the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, who were sponsoring her effort.
On August 6, 1926, Ederle stood on the beach in Cap-Gris Nez in France and started her 2nd attempt at 7:08 a.m..
At 9:40 p.m., she came back onto the shore in Kingsdown, England after swimming for 14 hours and 39 minutes and approximately 35 miles. She came ashore to crowds of people who had waded into the water to cheer for her and said, “I just knew if it could be done, it had to be done, and I did it.”
On August 27, 1926, Gertrude Ederle arrived back in New York City to a ticker tape parade, which was attended by an estimated two million people.
Just a few weeks after Ederle on August 29, 1926, Dutch athlete Amelia Corson, who was identified in the NYT article only as “Mrs. Corson”, became the 2nd woman and first mother to swim the English Channel at the age of 29. She finished the race in 15 hours and 32 minutes fueled by only “two pints of hot chocolate, four lumps of sugar, and a few crackers.”
Ederle’s overall world record stood for just one day after Corson’s swim, before it was broken on August 30, 1926 by Ernst Vierkotter, who swam 12:38.00.
She held the women’s record until 1950 when American swimmer Florence Chadwick swam the course in 13 hours and 20 minutes.
Ederle passed away in November of 2003 at 98. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1965 and the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2003. Her first major open water swim from Battery Park to Sandy Hook is now an annual race named the Ederle Swim.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Gertrude Ederle: 100 Years of Women Swimming the English Channel
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