Walpurga von Isacescu, from a 1900 publication.

Walpurga von Isacescu (c. 1870 – after 1911), also seen as Walburga von Isacescu, was an Austrian swimmer, the first woman athlete to attempt a swim across the English Channel.

Swimming career

Walpurga von Isacescu attempted to swim across the English Channel on 5 September 1900, a generation before the first woman succeeded at the challenge (when Gertrude Ederle did it, in 1926). She is considered the first woman swimmer to try.[1] Unfavorable weather and tides[2] contributed to her failure after ten hours, and twenty miles.[3][4][5] She announced plans for another attempt in 1903.[6]

As a member of the First Vienna Amateur Swimming Club,[7] she gave swimming demonstrations and participated in races, as when she raced Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman in the Danube River.[3] She swam the Danube River Race in 1902, from Melk to Vienna, in twelve hours, a record that stood until 1916.[8] "She tows her clothes behind her in a water-tight india rubber case," one newspaper explained of her weekly swim routine.[9]

Personal life

Baroness Walpurga was the young widow of a Romanian nobleman when she took up distance swimming.[9] She did not inherit an independent living, but worked as an office clerk at an Austrian railway to support herself.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Michael K. Bohn, Heroes & Ballyhoo: How the Golden Age of the 1920s Transformed American Sports (Potomac Books 2009): 178. ISBN 9781597974127
  2. ↑ "Woman's Channel Swim: An Austrian Amateur Champion Makes a Plucky But Vain Attempt to Cross" New York Times (September 18, 1900): 12. via ProQuest
  3. 1 2 Lisa Bier, Fighting the Current: The Rise of American Women’s Swimming, 1870–1926 (McFarland 2011): 46, 50. ISBN 9780786487264
  4. ↑ "Madame Walburga von Isacescu" Black and White Budget (September 22, 1900): 800.
  5. ↑ "Men and Women" The Sphere (September 15, 1900): 337.
  6. ↑ "Will Swim the Channel" Boston Daily Globe (January 25, 1903): 28. via ProQuest
  7. ↑ "A Lady Channel-Swimmer" The Sketch (September 19, 1900): 378.
  8. ↑ Caitlin Davies, Downstream: A History and Celebration of Swimming the River Thames (Aurum Press 2015). ISBN 9781781314883
  9. 1 2 "Woman a Channel Swimmer" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (September 14, 1902): 1. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  10. ↑ "Ladies' Gossip" Otago Witness (August 7, 1901): 62. via Papers PastOpen access icon
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