Eleanor Studley Hurd was the first woman to swim the Hellespont, also know as the Dardanelles, a strait in Turkey that separates the Asian and European continents.
Her feat accomplished in 1929, only 3 years after Gertrude Ederle’s famous first-woman swim of the English Channel, Studley swam the Hellespont in 80 minutes, beating two other female competitors and becoming the first woman to complete it. She was coached by Karl Michael, later a Dartmouth College coach.
Copyright © 2011 by Open Water Source