Four swimmers from four countries have crossed the English Channel as a relay. After several storm-related postponements, Nathalie Pohl, Jasmine Harrison, Mariana Santos and Mariam Binladen reached the French coast — some 48 kilometres in 11 hours and 28 minutes. The swimmers describe their crossing expressly as a homage to Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle.
Our warmest congratulations to all four.
The relay swam from England to France — the opposite direction to Trudy Ederle's own. On 6 August 1926 the then twenty-year-old set off from Cap Gris-Nez and came ashore on the Kent coast some fourteen and a half hours later. She was the first woman to complete the crossing, and she was faster than every man before her.
The Channel asks the same of you in either direction: cold water, current, hours with no end in sight. That a hundred years later four women enter that water because of her is the finest legacy anyone could wish for.
6 August 2026 marks the hundredth anniversary of Trudy Ederle's crossing. The Foundation will mark the day on the Kent coast where she came ashore in 1926.