Gertrude Caroline Ederle (/ˈɛdərli/;[1] October 23, 1905[2] – November 30, 2003) was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and world record-holder in five events.

Ederle joined the club when she was only twelve and immediately took to learning the American crawl, developed at the WSA by Head Coach Louis Handley.

[8] At the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Ederle won a gold medal as a member of the first-place U.S. team in the 4×100 meter freestyle relay.

Together with her American relay teammates Euphrasia Donnelly, Ethel Lackie and Mariechen Wehselau, she set a new world record of 4:58.8 in the event final.

[6][page needed] Prior to Ederle, only five men had completed the swim across the English Channel, with the best time of 16 hours, 33 minutes by Enrique Tirabocchi.

[6][page needed] She made an arrangement with Edward L. Hyman to appear at the Brooklyn Mark Strand Theatre, who paid her significantly more than any prior individual performer.

A fall down the steps of her apartment building in 1933 twisted her spine and left her bedridden for several years, but she recovered sufficiently to appear at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

[17][18] The Gertrude Ederle Recreation Center, which opened in 2013 and is located in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, was named for her, and includes an indoor swimming pool.

[19][20] A BBC Radio 4 play, The Great Swim, by Anita Sullivan, based on the 2008 book of the same name by Gavin Mortimer, was first broadcast on September 1, 2010, and repeated on January 23, 2012.

[21] A biographical film, Young Woman and the Sea, based on the book of the same name by Glenn Stout, was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Joachim Rønning, and starring Daisy Ridley as Ederle.