She Persisted in Sports: American Olympians Who Changed the Game

It’s not easy to be a girl athlete. Girls are more likely to be told sports are for boys. Or that they’ll never be good enough, fast enough, strong enough, and that their athletic dreams are unacceptable, even impossible. Don’t listen to those people.

These woman athletes made their sports dreams real.

When MARGARET IVES ABBOTT was young, in the late 1800s. some girls had to work, and some girls, including Margaret, went to school. It was rare for any girl to play sports, but Margaret played golf. Even though she won local tournaments, there weren’t many opportunities for girls to compete on a  bigger stage. Still, she persisted in practicing golf while she studied and traveled. When she was in Paris in 1900, Margaret and her mother learned of an international sports exhibition happening at the World’s Fair. Without knowing that it was the second modern Olympic Games, they entered and Margaret won! When Margaret died in 1955, she had no idea she’d been the first American woman to become an Olympic champion.

When she was a child, GERTRUDE EDERLE lost part of her hearing because of measles, but she and her parents were determined that it wouldn’t stop her from doing anything she wanted, including swimming. By the time she turned twenty, she had won three medals in freestyle at the 1924 Olympics. She then found a new dream to swim the English Channel. After Gertrude’s first attempt didn’t succeed, her coach said that women might just not be capable of swimming the Channel. Rather than listen to that coach, she found a new coach, and she persisted. The next year, in 1926, she succeeded, her record time would not be broken for more than twenty years.