The Great Swim

Bought for a friend who loves to swim... She says she could not put it down which obviously makes it an excellent read in my book!

Riveting account of the race to be the first woman to swim the channel. The strength of these women was extraordinary, such "pluck"! Fascinating detail and historical context etc but above all just an amazing and important story. Finished this book in the small hours of this morning as I couldn't put it down. Essential reading.

In 1926 Gertrude Ederle, a 19 year old New Yorker, became the first woman to swim the English Channel. She did it in record time, faster than any of the five men who had swum the Channel before her. Although that feat is little more than the answer to a trivia question today, at the time it was an accomplishment that rated a huge parade through Manhattan. She was treated as a heroine, at least until Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic three years later.The Great Swim by Gavin Mortimer tells Ederle's story and the media frenzy surrounding it. There were three other American women competing to become the first woman to swim the Channel that year, as well as the man who broke Ederle's record only three weeks after Ederle set it. What is most interesting is the role of the press in reporting, in making these historic events. Ederle and another of the swimmers were under contract to write regular newspaper columns about their preparations. Some newspapers sponsored one or more of the swimmers. They reported daily on the swimmers, and included lots of photos of the swimmers in their swimsuits. It had only been a few years since bathing costumes for women had included sleeves and stockings. The new one-piece form-fitting swimsuits of the twenties were the bee's knees. Incidentally, Ederle developed what may have been the first bikini, using men's swimming shorts and a modified bra. Shortly after she started the record-setting swim, she chucked the bra and swam the Channel topless.Mortimer covers the preparations, the swim itself, which was quite dramatic, and the aftermath. Ederle was treated as a conquering hero, then as an accused cheater, and then as a traveling show curiosity. If anyone thinks the media frenzies of today are new, they need only read The Great Swim to see that they are only carrying on a tradition as old as the press itself.

This is most certainly not "just a book about swimming" which, according to the author, was the dismissive response of many potential publishers. To be sure the nub of the story is the race between four swimmers who in the summer of 1926 were attempting to become the first woman to cross the treacherous waters of the English Channel. But the rivalry is conveyed not as a simple narrative but is, in the author's skilful hands, played out against a backdrop of intrigue and drama. Especially influential were the press. Rival newspapers signed up the two leading aspirants, both young and photogenic, and proceeded to stoke the rivalry between them. The tension was heightened by the close proximity of the two camps on the same French beach during the several weeks of preparation for the challenge.The drama builds chapter by chapter as some of the swimmers, spotting a break in the unseasonably cold weather, strike out from either side of the Channel but all are forced out of the water at some stage by combinations of prolonged exposure, heavy swells, tidal drift, cross-currents, jellyfish, seasickness, stomach cramps, or (in one case) an impenetrable fog. It is the nineteen-year-old American Gertrude Ederle who eventually triumphs. Not only does she do so in the teeth of a Channel storm but in a time which beats the men's record - the world record - by more than two hours - a first in any sporting event.All in all it is a rattling good tale of sporting courage and endurance told with verve and a good eye for detail. My one criticism - which concerns the publisher not the author -is the absence of an index.

America, 1925. Women had only just won the vote. Flappers were scandalising respectable society with their short hair and cigarette smoking. In a huge concession to women's sport, the International Olympics Committee had just allowed women to compete in 100m backstroke and 200m breastsroke swimming competition in the 1924 Olympics - up until then it had been deemed improbable that a woman would be able to swim further than 100m.Meanwhile, the race to become the first woman to swim the English Channel was being staged by an improbable but amazingly stubborn and intrepid cast of female swimmers. Gertrude Ederle, Mille Gade, Lillian Cannon and Clarabelle Barrett from the US - a diverse collection of swimmers from different backgrounds and with different temperaments - were all racing to become the first woman to swim the Channel. The strict social mores of the time meant that national newspapers entered a bidding war to sponsor each of the female swimmers: they realised it was a legitimate way to get previously frowned upon photos of scantily clad women on their pages to boost circulation. Each of the swimmers became regular columnists in a national paper, recording the trials and tribulations of their training and swims, exciting the imagination of the general public to the race. Poor humble Clarabelle Barrett was the exception to this - too tall and large framed to be deemed photogenic in a swimsuit and therefore spurned by the press - she had to fund the whole costly affair herself.From America at fever pitch, the isolated windswept beaches and cliffs of Cap Griz Nez and Dover, where the swimmers moved to train for the summer of 1926, were a very different thing. Tussles for the best hotels and coaches and pilots, in a time where there had been very few successful crossings of the Channel, ensued. Rivalries developed and were played out on the beach and in the column inches of the press across the Atlantic.However different the circus and hype surrounding the race was, the emotions and fears and tensions of the swimmers were eerily exactly the same as they are today. The nerves of the women before their big day, the mental torture of waiting for a good tide, the rhythm of the actual crossings themselves with their excitement and optimism at the start of the swim followed by boredom, misery, anxiety and exhaustion and guts and determination have not changed one bit. (Of course although there are amazing similarities between their swims eighty years ago and Channel swims today, the amazing self belief and drive of these pioneer women, swimming at a time when women were told that they were only good to stay at home, sets them apart from any endeavor today!)The last section of the book is the most poignant. The race is over and the resulting fortune of the swimmers - successful and unsuccessful - is followed over the years. Swimming the Channel is a life changing experience today - imagine how much more so it was then when the stakes were so high.Gavin Mortimer's is the best I've read on Channel swimming to date. He documents wonderfully the atmosphere and social background to the race, setting the scene and the tension for each woman's swim, darting back and forth in the book between each of the camps to build up a real dramatic tension to the race. The wait is almost unbearable - even if you know the outcome

Tout est parfait merci

I bought this as a gift for my father in law who is still competitively swimming. He read the book cover to cover and has since passed it through his entire club. An great read for anyone who loves the sport.

Great book for women, swimmers or no. Great book for all swimmers. Thanks to my sister for the recommendation.

This book was great. The stories of the four American women who tried to swim the Channel in 1926 are far more interesting than I anticipated -- and the Channel swim itself is much more complicated. The story is well told and compelling. The story touches on so much more than just these women and their challenges -- it's about the culture wars of the 1920s, equality for women athletes, and the newspapers of the era. I enjoyed the book.I read the book on my Kindle 3. The formatting was really, really bad, with so many OCR errors that some passages are almost incomprehensible. I was really disappointed. This is presumably not the author's fault, but the publisher's, which is why I did not factor it into my review -- I just want to note it for other Kindlers.

Really loved reading this. All about women swimming the English channel and what it was like in the 20s.