This ticker-tape parade was held for a swimmer named Gertrude Ederle!

August 6th, 1926: was the day that, Gertrude Caroline Ederle, became the first woman to swim across the English Channel in a time of 14-hours, 39-minutes. The fastest time over the previous five men who had swam it.

From Wikipedia:

Gertrude Caroline Ederle (October 23, 1905 – November 30, 2003) was an American competitive swimmer. In 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

She trained at the Women's Swimming Association, which produced such competitors as Eleanor Holm and Esther Williams. She joined the club when she was only thirteen. From this time Gertrude began to break and establish more amateur records than any other woman in the world.

At the 1924 Summer Olympics, she won a gold medal as a part of the US 400-meter freestyle relay team and bronze medals for finishing third in the 100-meter and 400-meter freestyle races.

When Ederle returned home, she was greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York City. She went on to play herself in a movie (Swim Girl, Swim) and tour the vaudeville circuit, including Billy Rose's Aquacade. She met President Coolidge and had a song and a dance step named for her. Unfortunately, her manager, through a combination of incompetence and duplicity, mishandled her showbiz career and Ederle failed to reap the rewards she deserved. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1965.

[Oh, I have to throw this in: Coach Ahelee of Mision Viejo Aquatics swam it too.]

[Link]

After reading the article it seems to me that swimming was once held in higher regard than that of football or basketball during the depression. Coming out of that generation the world embraced Johnnie Weismuller as Tarzan, Esther Williams and her swim movies, and perhaps others.

What changed the Zeitgeist.

CRITICISM! Open Memo to Katie Hoff and Ryan Lochte!

As Cullen Jones would say, both of you are the CEOs of your careers and your "sales are down," review your coaching situation immediately.

Katie Hoff - you are swimming 1976 times in the 200 free. Sippy Woodhead, circa 1979, would have kicked your butt in her low-tech, Lycra suit.

Though you have access to better nutrition, immunizations her generation/mine never had, better starting blocks, deeper pool depths, dolphin kicks off the wall, and you are swimming in a swimsuit made by NASA's finest mad scientists, you are failing in taking the 200-free to the next level. The USA has not owned a record in that event for the past 30-years. Fix it.

Dagny Knutson is swimming 1979 times and Sippy can beat her too. One could ask what Dagny is doing differently to beat you but what one should really ask is what are the Europeans doing differently since they can "own" you both in an off-meet?

Laure Manadou knows how to swim a 200 Free and obviously so does Federica Pellegrini. They apparently sprint it like it's a quarter-mile, horse race. Laure Manaudou taught the Europeans how to do it why can't American swimmers learn how?

Here is an idea: You don't go out in a 58.00! You pretend your Libby Trickett, or Britta Steffen, and you go out in 55.00 and then when you are coming back and you can't hold on, you do what the Europeans do! You hold on!

Consider going to Italy or France and asking for help. Perhaps French Coach Philippe Lucas is available? Just do something, Australia has a nice ring to it too.

Ryan Lochte: It "smells" like you are over training. (Garbage yardage has an odor, right?) You changed something and it is not working. I would collect all of your times in both workouts and races and evaluate what you were doing when things were going great and discard those practices that are screwing with your "bonus money."

You are very charismatic and you could be the breakout swimmer like Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, or Johnny Weismuller are to their respective sports. Note, like a 50-meter free, it only takes one mistake to blow a medal.

Don't get married to a bad decision. The three aforementioned athletes certainly changed when they had to. You coach is your employee not your employer.

Special thanks to Mark Savage on this post.

The photo of Federica Pellegrini comes from Zimbio.com and they have another photo of her which they call Female Physique of the Day. :-O [Link]

FINA to study and confront 'speedsuit rage' in February 2009!

Times Online: "...FINA, the world governing body for swimming, revealed yesterday that it is to hold a forum to discuss the use of high-tech bodysuits. The news came on the day when a German swimmer, Paul Biedermann, raced inside one of the last two world records held by Ian Thorpe, of Australia, and the 89th world record of the year brought to a close the 2008 World Cup season. ..." [Link]

From Swim News: Cornel Marculescu, Executive Director of FINA ... told SwimNews that it had been a "busy year". It was now "time to breathe, to review all issues with the suits in the sport". There could be "no doubt", he noted, that the latest generation of bodysuits enhance performance to one degree or another. "Now we know there is something there, for sure - we need to know what and where is the limit," he said. His is the first official acceptance given without hesitation or fear that it was not only the surface image of the sport that had changed. It was not good for swimming, he acknowledged, that a player such as Nike had decided to walk away from the pool.

Was that the definition of "under statement" or what? [Link]

The Canberra Times: The world governing body, FINA, faces elections next year, with long-standing president Mustapha Larfaoui of Algeria likely to be challenged by the FINA treasurer Julio Maglione of Uruguay. Both men are under increasing pressure to state their views about the future of the revolutionary swimsuits, which use compression and low-drag material more akin to plastics than fabrics to improve times, and have polarised the swimming community. ..." [Link]

My Unqualified Opinion: When Johnny Weissmuller broke a minute in the 100-meter free, he wore a short-john, swimsuit made of wool. The swimsuit must have weighed 5-kilos as soon as it got wet and I am sure that the last 15-meters of the race were overly difficult.

The evolution of swimsuit material from circa 1922 to the Nylon swimsuits of 1964 led to roughly a 10% faster WR in the 100 meter free.

Now the leap from the Nylon suit circa 1964, throughout the 1970s when caps, Lycra swimsuits and goggles were accepted, all the way through to 2008, the technology again has led to roughly 10% faster WRs in the 100-meter free. In other words, the speed gains from 1922 to 1964 have been just as symmetrical as the speed gains from 1964 to 2008.

So, is this modern day argument to repeal bodysuits about buoyancy, coefficient drag, or both?

In my opinion, coefficient drag reduction should be off the table and should be fair game for suit manufacturers. They should be allowed to make their suits as form fitting and as slippery as they want to.

However, the issue of buoyancy is important. FINA needs to define what neutral buoyancy is and come up with an obvious test to measure it. A mannequin made out of ballistics gel or live models weighed underwater while wearing the product as a de facto measure of buoyancy seems horribly obvious.

References:

1. 100 meter free WR progression from Wikipedia: [Link]
2. German Olympic team Speedo from 1964 made out of Nylon material from the PowerHouse Museum: [Link]

The photo above is of a swimmer wearing a Nike Hydra swimsuit.

Welcome to Mount Olympus, Michael!

I swear he only won by a fingernail, BUT, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Great race, great finish, great swimmer.

Mark Spitz article circa 1972: [Link]
Johnny Weissmuller Wikipedia article: [Link]
Duke Kahanamoku Wikipedia article: [Link]

And speaking of nuclear fission, Michael Phelps owes the dolphin kick to nuclear physicist, Volney C. Wilson!

Amy Shipley from the Washington Post explores the history of the dolphin kick which ultimately transformed the freestyle into a hybrid event. Here is a snippet:

"... The underwater dolphin kick attracted the interest of swimming innovators as early as the 1930s. The late Volney C. Wilson explored its possibilities before diving into later work on nuclear fission and the atomic bomb, according to David Schrader, a research professor at Marquette University who is Wilson's biographer.

Schrader said Wilson, an alternate on the 1932 Olympic water polo team who studied fish propulsion at a Chicago aquarium, claimed to have shown the kick to Johnny Weissmuller, a training mate at the Illinois Athletic Club. ..."

I think Weissmuller would have been way more receptive to it if the flip-turn was part of a swimmer's lexicon.

There are so many gems in this article regarding swimmers Misty Hyman; Neil Walker; local boy, Lenny Krayzelburg; Michael Phelps; and they even bring in propeller heads from the Navy into George Washinton University to study its effectiveness. It is a total must read: [Link]

Thanks for sending this ;-)

'Tarzan and his Mate': 1934 Nude Swim Scene featuring Jane "skinny dipping"

Tarzan played by Olympian, Johnny Weissmuller, the first man to break a minute in the 100 LCM swims with a naked Jane. The underwater filming and choreography is fantastic.