My friend just announced that her grandfather swam in the Olympics, when the swimming competion was done in the Hudson River. She is 40.
What does she mean by this? I don't think any Olympics were in NY, but could they have trained there? Or is she fibbing? :joker:
Just curious...SmartSwimmeroftheDay award to the person who knows!
Doesn't really answer the question originally asked, but I thought I'd recommend a fascinating book I just finished reading, "The Great Swim" by Mortimer Gavin. It details the efforts by several women including Ederle, although focusing most attention on Ederle, to swim the English Channel.
I hadn't realized just how popular and influential marathon swimming had become and how much these women contributed to women's swimming--and women's athletics in general.
But a sad note was that for some time after Ederle's swim, she was exploited, then forgotten. She had an accident--fell down some steps--and no one thought she'd be able to walk unaided or to swim. She'd fallen into a depression but then recovered and taught herself to walk and to swim again, then to teach deaf children to swim (her hearing, already not good, had declined after her Channel swim). To me, that kind of courage is probably equal to what she accomplished in the Channel, amazing as that was--the daily task of making a dignified life for herself after the media adopted new "darlings."
Anyway, a really absorbing book that I'd recommend even if you're not a swimming history buff--because of the personalities and politics as well as the endurance and courage of the swimmers.
But as to the original question... the friend's uncle may or may not have actually been in the Olympics... but it's always possible that if she heard the stories as a youngster, memories can sometimes run together: i.e., he could have been in the Olympics and also done swims in the Hudson, but she may then have remembered these events as being simultaneous.
Doesn't really answer the question originally asked, but I thought I'd recommend a fascinating book I just finished reading, "The Great Swim" by Mortimer Gavin. It details the efforts by several women including Ederle, although focusing most attention on Ederle, to swim the English Channel.
I hadn't realized just how popular and influential marathon swimming had become and how much these women contributed to women's swimming--and women's athletics in general.
But a sad note was that for some time after Ederle's swim, she was exploited, then forgotten. She had an accident--fell down some steps--and no one thought she'd be able to walk unaided or to swim. She'd fallen into a depression but then recovered and taught herself to walk and to swim again, then to teach deaf children to swim (her hearing, already not good, had declined after her Channel swim). To me, that kind of courage is probably equal to what she accomplished in the Channel, amazing as that was--the daily task of making a dignified life for herself after the media adopted new "darlings."
Anyway, a really absorbing book that I'd recommend even if you're not a swimming history buff--because of the personalities and politics as well as the endurance and courage of the swimmers.
But as to the original question... the friend's uncle may or may not have actually been in the Olympics... but it's always possible that if she heard the stories as a youngster, memories can sometimes run together: i.e., he could have been in the Olympics and also done swims in the Hudson, but she may then have remembered these events as being simultaneous.
