Sally Bauer

Sally Bauer and two journalists after a long-term swim.

Sally Viola Bauer (born July 29, 1908 in Halmstad ; † June 15, 2001 in Lund ) was a Swedish long-distance swimmer. She was the first Scandinavian person to swim across the English Channel .

Life

Bauer spent her youth in Helsingborg and attended high school there. After her training, she worked as a secretary and swimming instructor. She temporarily held the post of national trainer at the Swedish Swimming Association. Bauer moved to Malmö in 1945 and she lived in Lund from 1987 onwards.

She began her sporting career at the age of 16 in the Helsingborg swimming club. In 1931 she managed to cross the Öresund from Helsingborg to Helsingør . In 1938 she accepted the challenge of a Danish company that had set aside an amount of DKK 5000 for the elimination of the Danish record for swimming through the Kattegat from the northwestern tip of Zealand (Sjællands Odde) to Grenaa on Jutland . After a failed first attempt, she needed 17 hours and 5 minutes for the distance in the second attempt, which meant that she undercut the previous record by 12 hours.

Inspired by the work of the American Gertrude Ederle, she set out for the English Channel in 1939. The trip was sponsored by various Swedish newspapers, theme parks and wholesalers. Bauer began the crossing on August 14th from Cap Gris-Nez near Calais in France . Despite considerable difficulties with the currents caused by the ebb and flow of the tide, she arrived in England after 15 hours and 22 minutes , with which she missed the existing record by only an hour and a half. After the Second World War, she managed to swim in the other direction in 14 hours and 40 minutes in 1951, which was the Swedish record until 2010.

A train on the Schonens regional railway ( Pågatåg ) and a school in Helsingborg are named after Sally Bauer . The writer Sara Stridsberg published the novel Happy Sally in 2004 , which freely deals with aspects of Sally Bauer's life.

credentials

• Helena Tolvhed: Sally Viola Bauer . In: Maria Sjöberg & Lisbeth Larsson (eds.): Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon . Online encyclopedia, 2018 (Swedish, Sally Bauer ).