The Fiercest Female Athletes Who Are Beyond Inspiring

During the early 20th century, women athletes were not taken seriously and were generally believed to be inferior to men who participated in the same sports. This is, of course, absurd, and Gertrude Ederle was one of the women who smashed those stereotypes to the ground during more oppressive times of the 1920s. She became the first woman to swim across the English Channel in August 1926.

In addition to becoming the first woman to successfully perform this swim, she beat out the times of all five men who had previously swam the Channel by a whole two hours! Ederle’s hearing was permanently affected by this famous feat, and she went on to mentor deaf children in the sport of swimming. The rest of her career included three Olympic medals and multiple world records.