Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, is the subject of a new movie on Disney, called A Young Woman and the Sea.
Gertrude Ederle is has been a hero since I first heard of her. She was just 20 when she made the crossing, smashing the men’s record in the process and setting a time that lasted until 1950. She was also a medal-winning Olympian and holder of multiple world records.
What struck me most about the movie was the other women who were forces in her life: her mother, who insisted that she and her sister learn to swim and worked to pay for their membership in a women’s swim club, her female coach at the club, and the support of her sister throughout. They, along with Ederle herself, fought hard against the sexism of the time.
The movie takes a couple of liberties for dramatic effect, but is reportedly quite true to the biography of the same name. Her coach probably did sabotage her first attempt (though not by making her sick by adding sleeping pills to her tea), and her second attempt took place almost a year after the first, not mere days later.
If you want a feel-good movie to inspire you to swim, I highly recommend this one.
