Hélène de Pourtalès
Hélène de Pourtalès 
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| Nationality: |
 Switzerland
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| Birthday: | April 28, 1868 | |||||||||
| Place of birth: | New York City | |||||||||
| Date of death: | November 2, 1945 | |||||||||
| Place of death: | Geneva | |||||||||
| Society: | Société Nautique de Genève | |||||||||
| Boat classes: | 1 to 2 tons | |||||||||
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Hélène de Pourtalès (born April 28, 1868 in New York City , † November 2, 1945 in Geneva ; born Helen Barbey ) was a Swiss sailor .
At the Olympic Games in Paris in 1900 , the native American, together with her husband Hermann de Pourtalès and her nephew Bernard de Pourtalès, formed the crew of the boat Lérina , which competed in the boat class 1 to 2 tons. They won the first race on the Seine in Meulan-en-Yvelines and came second in the second, separately ranked race.
Hélène de Pourtalès is the first woman to take part in an Olympic competition and also the first modern Olympic champion .
Life
Hélène de Pourtalès was born Helen Barbey in the USA , her parents were Henry Barbey and Mary Lorillard Barbey, the last members of a very wealthy family whose ancestor Pierre Lorillard founded and built a tobacco empire. Her father was a wealthy banker. In 1891 she married in Paris in the Cathédrale américaine de Paris her husband Hermann de Pourtalès , the son of Count Alexandre-Joseph de Pourtalès (1810-1883) and his wife Augusta Marie Elisabeth Saladin de Crans (1815-1885), members of a old Huguenot family. There are three daughters from the marriage. Hélène de Pourtalès inherited the family's passion for horses from her mother's line (Pierre Lorillard was the first US owner of a horse to win the British Derby in 1881 with the horse Iroquois) and a love for sailing. The Lorillard family was a central figure in Newport, Rhode Island , where the America's Cup regattas were held at the time. In one of her diaries, which was later sold at auction, there is a description of the 7th America's Cup races in 1887 between the US defender Volunteer and the British challenger Thistle .
Hélène de Pourtalès lived in Paris and Geneva and in 1900 she attended the Olympic golf tournament in which her husband's cousin was a referee. Hélène de Pourtalès had two passports, one Swiss and one US, and her husband had dual citizenship between Switzerland and Germany. Her stepson was the writer Guy de Pourtalès (1881–1941).
Web links
- Hélène de Pourtalès in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
| personal data | |
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| SURNAME | Pourtalès, Hélène de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Barbey, Helen |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Swiss sailor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 28, 1868 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 2, 1945 |
| Place of death | Geneva |