1. Gertrude Caroline Ederle was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and world record-holder in five events.
20 Facts About Gertrude Ederle
1. 2.
Gertrude Ederle later trained at the Women's Swimming Association, founded by Charlotte Epstein.
3.
Gertrude Ederle joined the club when she was only twelve and immediately took to learning the American crawl, developed at the WSA by Head Coach Louis Handley.
4.
Gertrude Ederle set eight more world records after that, seven of them in 1922 at Brighton Beach.
5.
In total, Gertrude Ederle held 29 US national and world records from 1921 until 1925.
6.
Helen Wainwright cancelled due to an injury, so Gertrude Ederle decided to go to France on her own.
7.
Gertrude Ederle trained with Jabez Wolffe, a swimmer who had attempted to swim the English Channel 22 times.
8.
Gertrude Ederle bitterly disagreed with Wolffe's decision and it was speculated that he did not want Ederle to succeed.
9.
Gertrude Ederle returned to New York and began training with coach Bill Burgess who had successfully swum the Channel in 1911.
10.
Gertrude Ederle received a contract from both the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune which paid her expenses and provided her with a modest salary.
11.
Gertrude Ederle started at Cap Gris-Nez in France at 07:08 am on August 6,1926, and came ashore at Kingsdown, Kent, 14 hours and 34 minutes later.
12.
Gertrude Ederle's record stood until Florence Chadwick swam the Channel in 1950 in 13 hours and 23 minutes.
13.
When Gertrude Ederle returned home, she was greeted with a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan, with more than two million people along the parade route.
14.
Gertrude Ederle made an arrangement with Edward L Hyman to appear at the Brooklyn Mark Strand Theatre, who paid her significantly more than any prior individual performer.
15.
Gertrude Ederle met President Coolidge and had a song and a dance step named for her.
16.
Gertrude Ederle never married and by 2001 lived in a nursing home.
17.
Gertrude Ederle died on November 30,2003, in Wyckoff, New Jersey, at the age of 98.
18.
Gertrude Ederle was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City.
19.
Gertrude Ederle was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 1965.
20.
Gertrude Ederle was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2003.