Walpurga von Isacescu (1852 – May 5, 1925), also seen as Walburga von Isacescu, was an Austrian swimmer, the first woman athlete to attempt a swim across the English Channel.
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 did it, in 1926). She is considered the first woman swimmer to try.Michael K. Bohn, Heroes & Ballyhoo: How the Golden Age of the 1920s Transformed American Sports (Potomac Books 2009): 178. Unfavorable weather and tides"Woman's Channel Swim: An Austrian Amateur Champion Makes a Plucky But Vain Attempt to Cross" New York Times (September 18, 1900): 12. 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. "Madame Walburga von Isacescu" Black and White Budget (September 22, 1900): 800."Men and Women" The Sphere (September 15, 1900): 337. She announced plans for another attempt in 1903."Will Swim the Channel" Boston Daily Globe (January 25, 1903): 28.
As a member of the First Vienna Amateur Swimming Club,"A Lady Channel-Swimmer" The Sketch (September 19, 1900): 378. she gave swimming demonstrations and participated in races, as when she raced Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman in the Danube River. She swam the Danube River Race in 1902, from Melk to Vienna, in twelve hours, a record that stood until 1916.Caitlin Davies, Downstream: A History and Celebration of Swimming the River Thames (Aurum Press 2015). "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
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
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.