[2][3][4][5][6] In 1924, at 15 years of age, Bienenfeld won the annual Austrian five-mile open-water swimming competition Quer durch Wien (Across Vienna) on the Danube that gathered about 500,000 spectators.

[9][10][11] Bienenfeld won a bronze medal in the 200 m breaststroke at the 1927 European Aquatics Championships in Italy, at 19 years of age.

[12] Until the 2000s, Bienenfeld remained the only Austrian to win a swimming medal, together with Fritzi Löwy, who finished third in the 400 m freestyle at the same 1927 European Aquatics Championships.

[18] There, they worked as swimming instructors in New York, and then ran a successful real estate business in Florida.

[6] There she helped financially her lifelong rival and then close friend Löwy, who was fighting breast cancer.