THE CHANNEL SWIM.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 205, 30 August 1926, Page 7

THE CHANNEL SWIM.

ANOTHER WOMAN CROSSES. BACKER WINS £20,000 BETLONDON, August 29. Mrs. Corson, a woman of Danish birth, but a naturalised American, has succeeded in swimming the English Channel from Cape Grisnez to Dover. She accomplished the feat in 15 hours 38 minutes. She entered the water at Cape Grisnez at 11.32 p.m. on Friday and stepped ashore at Dover at 3.10 p.m. on Saturday She began strongly at a rate of 19 strokes a minute after she had partaken of a breakfast of cocoa and loaf sugar and chocolate. Her husband accompanied her in a boat. Mrs. Corson fought her way through the gruelling flood-tide at the finish. She was exhausted when she reached the shore and staggered into the arms of friends. She beat the record of any man for the feat, but her time was about an hour behind that of Miss Gertrude Ederle on August 6. Mrs. Corson is 27 years old and the mother of two children. "You can bet your life I will swim the Channel. What do you think I left my husband and children for?" she' said before entering the water. • "You make mc feel homesick asking mc if I can do it." Mrs. Corson attributes her fitness to the fact that she does not drink alcoholic liquor, or smoke, or keep late hours. She said: "There you have it in a nutshell." A message from New York says Mr. Walter Lissburg, a tyre dealer, financed Mrs. Corson's swim and the cost of her training period. He had placed a bet of £1000 at odds of 20 to 1 with Lloyds that Mrs. Corson would swim the Channel before September 1. He has, therefore, won £20,000 and has now issued a challenge on behalf of Mrs. Corson. to "everybody concerned," Miss Ederle included, to swim around Manhattan Tsland for a purse of £5000. Miss Ederle's adviser says he will consider the challenge when he has received it. Mr. Lissburg intends to give Mrs. Corson £5000, says the "Sunday News." (A. and N.Z.-Reuter.) A PROFITABLE BUSINESS. FORTUNE OFFERED MISS EDERLE. YOUNG SWIMMER GLORIFIED. (Received 10.30 a.m.) NEW YORK, August 29. That swimming the English Channel has become a profitable business, as we«J as a great athletic feat, was demonstrated when Miss Ederle's attorney announced that she had already received offers totalling 900,000 dollars for theatrical tours and swimming exhibitions, and would shortly announce which of these she will accept. Two promoters to-day made offers, aside from the above, for a race between Miss Ederle and Mrs. Corson for a 25,000 dollars purse, around Manhattan Island, whereon New York is situated, a distance of 42 miles. A hundred thousand dollars is offered for a race on Delaware Bay over a course of 20 miles or more. It is expected that Miss Ederle will probably accept. Miss Ederle received a welcome usually given only to a national hero upon her arrival here. Hundreds of thousands crowded the streets to see her, while thousands of congratulatory messages, including one from President Coolidge, continued to reach her after her arrival home.— (A. and N.Z.)

Mrs. Corson ie the seventh swimmer to have negotiated the English Channel, the list being: Captain Webb (1875), T. N. Burgess (1911), H. Sullivan (.1923), Enrique Tiraboschi (1923), C. Toth (1923), Mies Gertrude Ederle (August 6, this year) and Mrs. Corson.