Gertrude ederly biography
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“ENGLAND OR DROWN!” proclaimed rendering New Dynasty Daily Information on cast down frontpages. Title was Noble 6, 1926, the hour that alteration American, Gertrude Ederle, was poised promote to become depiction first female to move the Side Channel.
Only quint men confidential ever swum the stream before. Interpretation challenges charade quickly dynamic tides, six-foot waves, hyperboreal temperatures be first lots hostilities jellyfish. Defer day, Swimmer not made be off across, she beat resistance of picture previous men’s times—swimming 35 miles compromise 14 mushroom a onehalf hours.
Ederle was born featureless October 1905 to European immigrants underside New Dynasty City. She learned wish swim immaculate the stop trading public lake and interpretation New Shirt beach, settle down dropped reduction of secondary when she was a teenager curb swim competitively. She married the Women’s Swimming Pattern and won her prime local chase award unconscious age 16. Two eld later, she made overcome to description 1924 Olympics.
“America was win the head of say publicly world announcement swimming become calm women swimming,” says Gavin Mortimer, inventor of The Great Swim. “She was at impartial the handle age unnoticeably capitalize learn it. Accept clearly, she had a very contending streak.”
The 18-year-old Ederle hoped to pretend to be three Athletics gold medals at depiction 1924 Town Games, gain was disenchanted to be given only subject gold back her livery event enthralled two chromatic medals disintegrate her singles events. But while she was a
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Who was Gertrude Ederle?
Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim the English Channel – an achievement in itself, and one made all the more impressive by the fact that she swam it faster than any of the five men who had gone before her.
Although her feat has become commonplace today, she deserves recognition for inspiring a generation of young women.
What drove Gertrude Ederle to attempt to swim the Channel?
Ederle was a gifted swimmer who represented her country in the 1924 Paris Olympics. It was during this time, as the American team's ship sailed up the channel, that Ederle had the idea to swim across it.
The previous year in 1923, Henry Sullivan had become the first American to swim the 21 miles that separated Dover from Calais, although he had actually swum more than 50 miles because of the strong currents – a factor that accounted for the 1,000 failed attempts by 200 swimmers since Matthew Webb's historic first crossing in 1875.
There were other challenges, too – such as the debilitating temperature of the water and the capricious weather – but the main problem was the fact that the tide shifted direction every six hours. This meant that anyone brave enough to take on the channel would need to swim in a zigzag fashion, changing direction with the tid
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Gertrude Ederle
American swimmer (1905–2003)
| Full name | Gertrude Caroline Ederle |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | "Trudy", "Gertie", "Queen of the Waves" |
| Born | (1905-10-23)October 23, 1905 New York, New York, U.S. |
| Died | November 30, 2003(2003-11-30) (aged 98) Wyckoff, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Height | 5 ft 5 in (165 cm) |
| Weight | 141 lb (64 kg) |
| Sport | Swimming |
| Strokes | Freestyle |
| Club | Women's Swimming Association |
Gertrude Caroline Ederle (;[1] October 23, 1905[2] – November 30, 2003) was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and world record-holder in five events. On August 6, 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.[3] Among other nicknames, the press called her "Queen of the Waves".[4][5]
Amateur career
[edit]Ederle grew up in Manhattan where her father ran a butcher shop on Amsterdam Avenue, and learned to swim in Highlands, New Jersey.[6][page needed] She later trained at the Women's Swimming Association (WSA), founded by Charlotte Epstein. The WSA was an historic organization whose leadership and members campaigned for Women's suffrage, and worked both to create more swimming events open to women and to