Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel – archive 1926

On 6 August 1926, the 19-year-old made the crossing from Cap Gris-Nez to Deal in 14 hours and 39 minutes, breaking the men’s record by almost two hours

First woman to swim the English Channel

7 August 1926

Miss Gertrude Ederle, a 19-year-old New York swimmer, swam the English Channel yesterday from the French coast to England. She is the first woman to accomplish this feat, which has been performed on only five previous occasions, although her fellow countrywoman Miss Clarabelle Barrett came within two miles of it last Monday. Her time is given as 14 hours 45 minutes, which sets up a new Channel swimming record, the previous best being 16 hours 33 minutes – the performance of Tiraboschi, the Italian swimmer, in 1923. This is Miss Ederle’s second attempt, her first being in 1925.

Miss Ederle began her effort at seven o’clock yesterday morning in unfavourable conditions. A strong south-west wind sprang up within an hour or so of her start from Cape Gris-nez and made a rather rough sea. She did remarkably well, however, and news received at Dover showed that after six hours’ swimming she was about 10 miles off the French coast, but well to the eastward.
Continue reading.

Editorial: Miss Ederle’s victory

9 August 1926

It is over 50 years since Webb first swam the Channel, and for 30 years after his victory it seemed that in him the world had seen a superman among swimmers. But in the last few years four men have surmounted the ordeal, two of them in much shorter time than Webb took. Now, for the first time, the distinction, and with it the record for time, falls to a woman. With Miss Ederle’s plucky victory a great deal of the confident assumption of the past is discredited.

Wiseacres of swimming, however sympathetic they might be to the attempts of women swimmers on the Channel, have been fond of arguing that man is by temperament and physique better suited to bear the prolonged discouragements of unkindly tides, the numbing chill of long immersion, the sea sickness, the inflammation of the eyes, and the other slowly accumulating tribulations that daunt the will to win in a Channel swim.

Several magnificent attempts by women lately have ended to discount this head shaking. Now it must be a thing of the past. For Miss Ederle has beaten the men under conditions far from ideal. She had in the early part of her swim a rough sea to face. She suffered, as of course every Channel swimmer must, the giant pull of the tides that makes of the course a vast W, or at the best, and if the thing can be done, as Miss Ederle did it, within the compass of three tides, a huge inverted Z.

Webb, who took the now discredited route from England to France, swam 45 miles in all. Burgess, who got across in 1911, covered some 63 miles. But, like Tirabocchi, whose record of 1923 she has beaten, the new champion had strength and will enough left, as the third tide of her journey rushed her north-eastward, to combat its pull and gain the shore. Time and tide, which proverbially wait for no man, have been properly disciplined this time by a woman. In the Hellespontine romances of the future it is as likely as not to be a confident Leander who awaits on the beach the sprightly arrival from the deep of his Hero.

Miss Ederle’s Channel feat

9 August 1926

The whole of the sport-loving American public is jubilant over Miss Ederle’s achievement in swimming the Channel. The newspapers give up whole pages to pictures of the heroine, her mother, and other members of the family. Her biography was also broadcast last night. All the papers express the greatest gratification that it was an American girl who first crossed this difficult piece of water. The New York Times says that Miss Ederle won through a combination of pluck, skill, and luck. “A natural swimmer of great power and self-confidence, it was her indomitable spirit that shone out most in her triumph yesterday.”

Germany claims Miss Ederle

12 August 1926

Miss Gertrude Ederle’s Channel crossing has been the subject of much press comment, the emphasis being laid on the fact that she is only American by naturalisation of her parents, who are pure German. It is stated that Miss Ederle was born at Weilheim an der Teck, a small village in Wurtemburg, and that the family emigrated to America when Gertrude was a little child. It is now announced that she is about to visit her relations in south Germany before returning to the States.