[Deathwatch] Gertrude Ederle, first woman to swim English Channel,98

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

First woman to swim English Channel dies at 98
Mon Dec 1,12:28 PM ET

NEW YORK (AFP) - Gertrude Ederle, who battled male chauvinism and
20-foot waves to become the first woman to swim the English Channel,
died Sunday at a nursing home in New Jersey. She was 98.

Staff at the nursing home said she died peacefully in her sleep.

Ederle was only 19 when, in 1926, she confounded expectations by
swimming the stretch of water between England and France in just 14
hours and 31 minutes, a new record that eclipsed the efforts of the
five men who had previously completed the marathon swim.

Her success translated into instant celebrity back in the United
States, where she was feted by president Calvin Coolidge, received a
ticker-tape parade in New York and even appeared in a brief Hollywood
movie about her life.

Born in New York in 1905, Ederle learned to swim on the Jersey shore
where her father owned a summer house.

Despite warnings from doctors that prolonged swimming could exacerbate
a measles-induced hearing problem, Ederle said she was never able to
stay away from the water.

"I loved the water so much. I just couldn't stop," she said.

That childhood passion matured into sporting ambition and, in the early
1920s, Ederle had set several women's world freestyle records and she
competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics.

After the Games, she set her sights on the Channel, which had first
been conquered by Matthew Webb of England in 1875 in 21 hours and 45
minutes.

Four men had since mirrored Webb's feat. The conventional wisdom that a
woman could never last the distance appeared to be confirmed by
Ederle's first attempt in 1925 when she was disqualified for being
touched by her support team who thought she was drowning.

Ederle always complained that she had only been resting.

She bounced back from that initial disappointment the next year and had
the last laugh over her detractors by completing the swim in the
fastest time ever. Her women's record stood until 1950 when another
American, Florence Chadwick, made the crossing in 13 hours and 20
minutes.

After the public hysteria that greeted her return to the United States,
she toured the country with a vaudeville act.

Despite numerous proposals, she never married and her worsening
deafness drew her into an increasingly reclusive life as she grew
older.

"I have no complaints," she said in a late interview. "I am comfortable
and satisfied. I am not a person who reaches for the moon as long as I
have the stars."