New York, Dec 01: Gertrude Ederle, who was the toast of America and Europe in 1926 when she became the first woman to swim the English Channel, died Sunday. She was 98. Ederle had spent the last several years living at the Christian health care center in Wyckoff, new jersey, about 25 mile northwest of New York City, said martin ward, whose wife is one of Ederle's 10 surviving nieces and nephews. In a roaring decade where Americans cheered daredevils, few were as celebrated as Ederle, who was 19 when she made her historic swim on August 6, 1926. ``People said women couldn't swim the Channel,'' Ederle told a news agency in a 2001 interview marking the 75th anniversary of her feat. ``I proved they could.'' When she returned to her native land, there were celebrations, receptions and a roaring ticker-tape parade for her in New York, where she was born in 1905. She met president Calvin Coolidge, was paid thousands to tour in vaudeville, played herself in a movie (``swim, girl, swim'') and had a song and a dance step named for her.

Only five men had succeeded in swimming the channel before her, and she beat the record by more than two hours.

Bureau Report