Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World

by Glenn Stout

  Trudy preferred to stay in the background, something all her teammates noted. According to one, Doris O'Mara Murphy, on the trip Ederle "was a very quiet person She didn't hear very well and didn't like to be interviewed ... She always sat aside." Her effusive conversation with Marguerite Mooers Marshall after the Day Cup was a thing of the past. Her hearing had continued to deteriorate and was now obvious to everyone. Although she was familiar with her teammates from the WSA, and they with her, Olympians from elsewhere in the country found her pleasant but somewhat reticent and instantly noticed she was hard of hearing. Trudy often spoke much more loudly than necessary and tended to ignore conversations unless she could see the speaker talking, reading lips to compensate for what she could not hear.

  To keep everyone from going stir-crazy, all the athletes were provided with ample amounts of food, and, like modern cruise ship vacationers, few could resist three full meals a day. The food helped to break up the monotony, but Trudy fretted over her weight as each day her clothes seemed to fit just a little tighter. Chaperones and coaches also organized activities more common to a summer outing, just to keep everyone occupied, like potato races and other games. Douglas MacArthur gave several formal addresses and inspirational talks and led impromptu discussion groups on politics and world affairs. At night the athletes participated in sing-alongs and even held one formal dance, which for many of the girls gave them the most exercise of the entire journey, for there was no lack of willing dance partners. There was even a talent show one night at which Johnny Weissmuller gave an inadvertent peek at his future. At the end of the show, which primarily featured singers of varying abilities, Weissmuller, clearly bored with being on ship, jumped up on a table, grabbed a chandelier, and swung back and forth, scratching his side as if he were a monkey and letting out a yell, as one teammate recalled, "like he later did in Tarzan?

  As the journey went on the athletes managed to break away and have their own kind of fun. Even Trudy got involved, and one incident in particular may have played a part in her performance in the Olympics.

  Despite his diminutive size, American long-distance runner Joie Ray was one of the best runners of his era. Standing only five feet four inches and weighing less than 120 pounds, Ray, a taxi driver, was a member of the U.S. Olympic team in 1920, 1924, and 1928 and at times was the world record holder in both the mile and two-mile runs. On the journey to France, even though Ray was so heavily muscled he earned the nickname "Chesty," his teammates razzed him unmercifully over his size. When someone mentioned that they thought Trudy Ederle, who was both taller and heavier than Ray, could outwrestle him, the contest was on.

  Although it ran counter to her personality, Trudy, who despite her shyness still enjoyed making friends, was goaded into accepting the challenge. Besides, she was bored stiff. Word of the impending matchup spread among the Olympians on board the ship like a juicy piece of gossip. A time was arranged for the match and without alerting chaperones, trainers, coaches, or any other officials, Ederle and Ray, dressed in their training attire, squared off in the ring.

  It was anything but a fair matchup. Ray may have been small but he was also a competitive boxer, an activity that had already led to several suspensions by the AAU for participating in "unsanctioned" events. But the bored Olympians found the matchup more than titillating. Trudy and Ray reportedly wrestled several times before Olympic officials found out what was going on.

  It was all in good fun, but when the chaperones and AOC officials found out about the match, they were mortified. If word escaped that males and females were wrestling each other on board the ship, the virtuous image of the Olympic team would be shattered. Not only were Trudy and Ray read the riot act, but everyone involved was told that not only would there be no more wrestling, but they were not even to speak of it. While the match was never reported in the press and there was no specific indication that either Ederle or Ray was injured in the tussle, later circumstances suggest that Trudy Ederle may well have been injured in the fracas.

  On the final evening of the journey Douglas MacArthur addressed the entire team and gave a rousing speech. "I want you to tell you something before you leave," he said. "It's true you're all Olympians, but first and foremost you are Americans." Then, perhaps recalling the ill-advised wrestling match, he added, "Everything you say and do will reflect on your country."

  The ninth and final day of the long journey brought the USS America into the English Channel on its way to the port at Cherbourg, France, the first time Trudy Ederle had traveled through Channel waters since her trip to Germany with her parents nearly a decade before. This time, however, she may well have looked at the Channel waters with a critical eye, for the recent performances of Sullivan, Toth, and Tirabocchi, not to mention the efforts of Mille Gade Corson, now identified the Channel as the swimmer's ultimate challenge.

  The team disembarked in France on the morning of June 25 in Trudy's favorite weather, rain. The American male Olympians bounded off the ship and looked around, befuddled at their reception. General MacArthur had led them to believe they'd be greeted by scores of beautiful French women who would deliver kisses on the cheek, a fantasy that some of the athletes had spent some time looking forward to. Instead, they were met by a group of middle-aged men in beards carrying umbrellas—customs and other French governmental officials.

  Few Olympians had ever been to Europe before, and even those who had, like Trudy, were still wide-eyed as they traveled through France by train to Gare Saint Lazare, a train station outside Paris made famous by both the Claude Monet painting of the same name and Henri Cartier-Bresson's famous photograph "Behind the Gare Saint Lazare." There they were greeted by quite a large crowd that included a number of Americans who now lived in Paris, but once again, no French girls raced to embrace the American men. From there the squad then boarded buses and traveled to the team headquarters at Chateau de Rocquencourt, an eighteenth-century mansion outside Paris owned by Joachim, the fifth prince of Murat.

  Trudy was wide-eyed when the team arrived at the chateau. Poised on a hill overlooking the Seine, nine miles from the site of the games in Colombes, in the northwestern Parisian suburbs, the chateau was outwardly beautiful, and that was undoubtedly the reason it had been selected to house the American squad, because in almost every other way it was wholly inappropriate. But the men on the team didn't even get to stay in a permanent building. They were housed in Spartan, temporary huts made of pressboard erected on the grounds of the chateau. Each "room" of the cottages wasn't even entirely separate from others, as sleeping quarters were divided by half walls similar to those of a modern-day office cubicle. They were not only cold and damp, but the lack of privacy made it almost impossible for some of the men to sleep—one man snoring kept another dozen awake. The Olympics officials, on the other hand, stayed in the opulent accommodations of the chateau itself.

  Trudy and the other female athletes didn't have it much better. To protect their virtue the women's swimming team was segregated in two carriage houses a quarter mile away from the main house and the temporary cottages. The accommodations themselves were generally adequate, although one of the buildings lacked a bathroom. Like many of the other girls Trudy found that the high feather beds and sumptuous quilts and comforters took some getting used to, and she had a terrible time sleeping. The carriage houses bordered the main road, and the sound of automobile traffic was almost nonstop, a cacophony of beeping horns, revving engines, and squealing brakes.

  Even though some events, like rugby, had been taking place for weeks, it was still ten days before the official opening ceremony and more than three weeks before the start of the swimming competition. Although at first the athletes were accepting of their surroundings, each day brought more complaints, particularly from the two swim teams and their coaches.

  Lou Handley was particularly vociferous in his criticisms, if still unfailingly polite while filing them. The AOC officials had been told the swimming events would be held in a new pool in Colombes
, but upon their arrival they learned that the pool was not yet finished and the swimming competition would have to be held at Les Tourelles, on the far eastern side of Paris. Handley understood that the AOC wasn't to blame for that, yet while the AOC rented spacious limousines for their own use, the swimmers were only provided with a bus. Road conditions were so poor that instead of traveling a direct route to Colombes, the buses had to detour through central Paris, making what should have been a nine-mile journey a trip of fifteen miles bouncing over cobblestones that took more than an hour. Then it was at least another hour by bus to the pool for training. Then, once they arrived, the entire team of nearly sixty athletes, male and female, had precisely one hour to practice, from 11:00 A.M. to noon. For Trudy, it was hardly an improvement on the conditions aboard the America. She was a swimmer, but so far she had spent precious little time in the water. On the other hand she was becoming a world-class bus passenger.

  Apart from a locker room, there were no other Olympic facilities at the pool. After their brief period of training, in order to eat lunch Trudy and her teammates had to board the bus again and return to Paris, and then bus back to Les Tourelles—the AOC was petrified of leaving them alone in Paris, where they might meet a Frenchman—before returning by another bus to Rocquencourt at night. On any given day the girls spent up to six hours being driven back and forth, bouncing up and down on rough roads—hardly an idyllic situation, leaving Trudy to feel as if she were a piece of cargo being schlepped back and forth with no one to accept delivery.

  She and her teammates became so desperate to train that on a few occasions they woke before sunrise then traveled to the pool at dawn to squeeze in an extra half hour or so of practice before teams from other countries arrived later in the morning. But this created as many problems as it solved. The dining staff at Rocquencourt followed their contract to the letter and refused to provide the swimmers with an early breakfast. Whenever they returned from training and missed a meal, the staff refused to feed them. To an athlete like Trudy, training without proper nutrition, particularly after the long journey to France, was yet another impediment. And even when the girls did make it for dinner, the food, as Handley delicately termed it, was "ill chosen ... totally unfit for training athletes." True enough, because when the athletes learned they were being served horsemeat, some took to spiriting away bread and celery and skipping some meals all together.

  The situation was a mess, something that even the AOC eventually recognized. After only a few days even the officials themselves grew tired of the journey and many moved out of Rocquencourt and into a hotel in Colombes. They also moved many athletes, such as the men's swimming team, to other quarters, but the women's swimming team remained in a kind of exile in Rocquencourt, isolated from the rest of the Olympic Games, all but left to fend for themselves, with absolutely nothing to do after they returned to their quarters each evening. The only adjustment made in their accommodations came a few days later when the AOC ditched the ponderous buses and hired cars to transport the women. While that cut the time they spent on the Parisian roads almost in half, the AOC hired only five cars, one of which it regularly commandeered for its own use. On most days that left seven passengers piling into each of the remaining cars, hardly leaving room for the driver, as the girls sat on one another's laps and squeezed into seats made for half that number. The trip was quicker but even more uncomfortable than before.

  The end result left Trudy—and the women's team—in a shambles. After gaining weight on the trip over, now Trudy was hungry all the time, but instead of getting much-needed protein, she was filling up—and gaining weight—on bread and other items. All the back and forth by bus and car to the pool left her feeling exhausted, and the more weight she gained and the more tired she felt, the less confidence she had in her own ability. She could feel herself getting out of shape, and after being crammed in the seat of a car for several hours a day, her muscles were stiff and sore. When she got out of the car before training, there was virtually no time to warm up and work out the kinks.

  Trudy, partially because of her size and partially because she had to try to stay in shape for three events, was more adversely affected than any other swimmer. The lack of practice, a possible injury, cramped muscles, and difficulty adapting back to fresh water all combined to prove disastrous. Instead of the Olympic motto Faster, Higher, Stronger, Trudy's motto might as well have been "Slower, Weaker, Less Confident."

  Her only respite was the Olympic Games themselves. As immortalized in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, the memorable opening ceremony, held on July 3 under a crystalline blue sky after two days of heavy rain, left an impression on everyone. In a sense, the 1924 Olympics were the first modern Olympic Games, and today's opening ceremonies are in many ways based on the 1924 model. The United States team was the seventeenth nation in the parade of athletes that was the centerpiece of the ceremony, and the American team took over Colombes Stadium as if it were a conquering army—the American contingent of more than three hundred athletes was more than that of the first sixteen nations put together. The athletes' only complaint was with their dress—both men and women were garbed in navy blue jackets and wore straw hats, which Trudy and the other members of the women's team found entirely lacking in style.

  Fortunately the pool at Les Tourelles was a gem. The six-lane, fifty-meter Olympic pool surrounded by stands capable of seating more than five thousand spectators was more than adequate for competition. Set on a hillside overlooking Paris, the view was spectacular. For most of the girls it was the finest pool they had ever had the pleasure to use. Unfortunately they saw the pool far more often than they were actually allowed to swim in it.

  For nearly two weeks Trudy and many of her teammates slowly fell further out of shape. Lou Handley knew what was happening but was powerless to do much about it. The swimmers from Hawaii had brought along a trainer who specialized in massage, and a few days before the competition began he went to work on Trudy's legs, trying to knead them into shape. But he told her the knots in her thighs and calves felt "like walnuts" beneath his hands—it was too late to do much, and his description made her feel even worse. How could she swim with walnuts for muscles?

  As expected, at the team trials Trudy nevertheless earned a spot in both the 100-meter freestyle and the 400-meter relay team—even in diminished condition she was still one of the best swimmers in the world, and the opportunity to swim before so many people initially gave her and the other swimmers a much-needed shot of adrenalin.

  Trudy's Olympic Games finally began on July 13. Racing in one of three 400-meter heats, she won her race easily in a time of 6 minutes 12⅕ seconds, but that was nearly twenty seconds slower than her best time over the same distance. The following day she won her semifinal heat without being pressed, but she was even slower, finishing in 6 minutes 23⅘ seconds, still nearly thirty seconds off her best. Nevertheless her two times were still the best times in the trials, and she became one of three Americans, along with Helen Wainwright and Martha Norelius, to qualify for the finals.

  But the travel back and forth—and perhaps that lingering injury stemming from her wrestling match with Joie Ray—was beginning to take its toll. By all rights, the 400-meter freestyle was her race—over the past two years she'd never been seriously challenged over the distance, and her performance in the two preliminary heats seemed to indicate that her physical ailments were behind her. News reports confidently predicted an American sweep asking only, "Which American girl will win?" then answering that question by predicting a victory by Trudy with Wainwright likely to finish second ahead of Martha Norelius.

  Trudy's strategy in the race was the same as it had always been—if one could criticize her method of competition, it was that it never varied. In most races of any distance she simply ground her opponents down, setting a pace no other swimmer could maintain and then relentlessly pushing on as they dropped back. Thus far no one had ever really been able to keep up. But on this day the plan went awry.
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  Trudy led early but Martha Norelius, in a surprise, hung with her through the midpoint of the race and then began to pull ahead as Trudy, for the first time in her life, seemed to lack stamina and instead of growing stronger, began to fade. In the final lap, as she fought to keep Norelius within reach, Helen Wainwright, who had trailed both swimmers for the entire race, finished with a flourish. Martha Norelius beat Trudy by almost the length of her body, and Wainwright edged out Ederle for second place by nearly a meter, in a winning time of 6 minutes 2⅕ seconds, faster than Trudy's time in the preliminary, but still far off her best.

  Trudy finished third, good enough for the bronze medal, but she was crushed. As soon as she was alone she broke down in tears. The ceremony at the stadium at Colombes, where the girls received their medals and watched the American flag being raised as a band played "The Star-Spangled Banner," helped soften the blow, but the aura of invincibility that she had built over the previous two years was gone, as well as her self-confidence.

  Trudy received a measure of revenge the next day, giving the American team a five-yard lead in her opening leg of the 400-meter relay, as the American women swept to victory in 4 minutes 58⅘ seconds, earning Trudy a gold medal, but it was an empty victory, for the American team was so far advanced in comparison to swimmers from the rest of the world that any other swimmer on the American squad could have swum in Trudy's place, and the United States still would have won the gold medal. She was little more than a placeholder, and she knew it. The medal may have been gold on the outside, but to Trudy it seemed like plated tin.