1. Iris Cummings, known by her married name Iris Critchell, was an American aviator and competition swimmer who represented the United States at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.
23 Facts About Iris Cummings
1. 2.
Iris Cummings was born in Los Angeles on December 21,1920, and attended Redondo Union High School.
3.
Iris Cummings's father possessed a Doctor of Medicine from Tufts University School of Medicine and worked as an athletics coach at the start of the 20th century at Columbia University and as the athletic director at Swarthmore College from 1902 through 1908.
4.
Iris Cummings attended the 1932 Summer Olympics as a spectator and began competing in swimming the following year, winning numerous local and regional tournaments.
5.
Iris Cummings was not a member of any club during her first year of competition, but nonetheless placed first in several meets in addition to her participation at the 1933 Southern Pacific Amateur Athletic Union and Pacific Coast championships.
6.
Iris Cummings joined the Los Angeles Athletic Club in 1934 and received her first financial support in 1935, helping her attend that year's Far Western Championships.
7.
Iris Cummings captured the American national 200-meter breaststroke championship in 1936, which led to her participation in that year's Olympic trials and her selection as a member of the United States delegation to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
8.
Iris Cummings was required to raise her own funds for travel to the Games and spent much of her time leading up to the tournament collecting money rather than training.
9.
Iris Cummings placed second at the 1939 National Championships and retired from active competition shortly after, deciding that the 1940 Summer Olympics were unlikely to occur.
10.
Iris Cummings was among the first people accepted into USC's Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1939.
11.
Iris Cummings completed an advanced aerobatics course and earned her pilot's licence in 1940 and, by her 1941 graduation, had acquired enough training to begin work as an instructor.
12.
Iris Cummings served in World War II until the organization's deactivation on December 20,1944.
13.
Iris Cummings remained active as a flight instructor, as well as helping develop curricula for Federal Aviation Administration institutions.
14.
Iris Cummings raced airplanes competitively during this period and won the 1957 All Woman Transcontinental Air Race, capturing the first prize pot of $800.
15.
Iris Cummings ran the program with her husband until he retired in 1979, and continued alone until the program ended with her 1990 retirement.
16.
Iris Cummings continued teaching classes on aeronautics until 1996.
17.
Iris Cummings's students include astronauts George Nelson and Stanley G Love.
18.
Iris Cummings served as an FAA Pilot Examiner for over two decades and was named the organization's Flight Instructor of the Year for the Ontario district in 1972.
19.
Iris Cummings was inducted into the National Flight Instructors Hall of Fame in 2000.
20.
Iris Cummings was awarded the Federal Aviation Administration's Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award in 2006 for her dedication to airplane safety and the Nile Gold Medal of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in 2007 for her lifetime of dedication to aviation education.
21.
Iris Cummings had been a member of the Ninety-Nines, an organization dedicated to the support of women pilots, since 1952.
22.
At the time of her death, Iris Cummings was the last-known surviving participant of the 1936 Olympics and pre-war Olympics.
23.
Iris Cummings died in Claremont, California, on January 24,2025, at the age of 104.