Walpurga von Isacescu (''c.'' 1870 – after 1911), also seen as Walburga von Isacescu, was an Austrian swimmer, the first woman athlete to attempt a swim across the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

Swimming career

Walpurga von Isacescu attempted to swim across the English Channel on 5 September 1900, a generation before the first woman succeeded at the challenge (when

Gertrude Ederle Gertrude Caroline Ederle (October 23, 1906 – November 30, 2003) was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and world record-holder in five events. On August 6, 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. ...

did it, in 1926). She is considered the first woman swimmer to try. Unfavorable weather and tides contributed to her failure after ten hours, and twenty miles.Lisa Bier
''Fighting the Current: The Rise of American Women’s Swimming, 1870–1926''
(McFarland 2011): 46, 50. She announced plans for another attempt in 1903. As a member of the First Vienna Amateur Swimming Club, she gave swimming demonstrations and participated in races, as when she raced Australian swimmer

Annette Kellerman Annette Marie Sarah Kellermann (6 July 1887 – 6 November 1975) was an Australian professional swimmer, vaudeville star, film actress, and writer. Kellermann was one of the first women to wear a one-piece bathing costume, instead of the then ...

in the

Danube River The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

. She swam the Danube River Race in 1902, from

Melk Melk (; older spelling: ) is a city of Austria, in the federal state of Lower Austria, next to the Wachau valley along the Danube. Melk has a population of 5,257 (as of 2012). It is best known as the site of a massive baroque Benedictine monastery ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, in twelve hours, a record that stood until 1916. "She tows her clothes behind her in a water-tight india rubber case," one newspaper explained of her weekly swim routine."Woman a Channel Swimmer"
''Brooklyn Daily Eagle'' (September 14, 1902): 1. via

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

Personal life

Baroness Walpurga was the young widow of a Romanian nobleman when she took up distance swimming. She did not inherit an independent living, but worked as an office clerk at an Austrian railway to support herself."Ladies' Gossip"
''Otago Witness'' (August 7, 1901): 62. via

Papers Past The National Library of New Zealand ( mi, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) is New Zealand's legal deposit library charged with the obligation to "enrich the cultural and economic life of New Zealand and its interchanges with other nations" (''Nat ...

References

External links

A 1911 photograph of Walpurga von Isacescu, as an older woman, wearing a medal on her jacket
in the collection of Getty Images. {{DEFAULTSORT:Isacescu, Walpurga von English Channel swimmers Austrian sportswomen 1870s births 20th-century deaths Year of birth uncertain Year of death missing Place of birth missing Place of death missing