Ederle had won an Olympic gold medal in 1924 and failed in her first attempt at the Channel in 1925. This time she entered the water at Cap Gris-Nez in France at 7:08 a.m., greased with lard and wearing a two-piece suit she designed herself. Rough seas pushed her far off course, so that she swam an estimated 35 miles to cover a 21-mile crossing. She came ashore at Kingsdown in Kent. New York gave her a ticker-tape parade watched by some two million people.
Only five men had swum the Channel before 1926, and many people believed that women lacked the strength and endurance to do it. Ederle's first attempt in 1925 ended when her trainer had her pulled from the water, thinking she was in trouble, which she always disputed. For 1926 she hired Thomas Burgess, who had swum the Channel in 1911, as her trainer.
On August 6, she set off in calm water, but conditions worsened through the afternoon. Her father and sister followed in a tugboat, and reporters travelled alongside. At one point, when the weather grew so rough that her trainer urged her to quit, she is said to have lifted her head from the water and asked, "What for?" She used the American crawl, a stroke then still unusual for long-distance swimming.
She waded ashore at Kingsdown after about 14 and a half hours, beating the previous best time by nearly two hours. Her record for women stood until 1950. A measles infection in childhood had damaged her hearing, and in later life she became deaf and taught swimming to deaf children.
Key people: Gertrude Ederle, Thomas W. Burgess