ENDURANCE SWIM

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 68, 17 September 1930, Page 11

ENDURANCE SWIM

MISS MERCEDES GLEITZE

WILL ATTACK COOK STRAIT

(From "Ths Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 25 th July.

Miss Mercedes Gleitze is to make an attempt to swim Cook Strait at the end of the year, and will sail for New Zealand on 7th November.

During last week she accomplished a remarkable endurance test in the Wolverhampton Municipal Baths, swimming for 39 hours.

Mioß Gleitze entered the water at 8.30 on the Friday morning and concluded her swim at 11.30 on the Saturday night. On being taken out of the water she was placed in blankets on a stretcher, and immediately collapsed, her only remark being: "That's nice. I'm happy now." A doctor and a nurse wore in attendance, and Miss Gleitzo was conveyed in the ambulance to her hotel and put to bed. She had fully recovered from the exhaustion when the doctor saw her again on the Sunday morning, but sho did not get up.

Interviewed at her hotel later, Miss Gleitze was cheerful and looked very fit. She had quite recovered, she said, and she ate a hearty tea.

Tho Wolverhampton feat evoked remarkable enthusiasm. From the time she entered the water at 8.30 on the Friday morning about five thousand people visited the baths to witness the attempt. Sho was not troubled seriously with drowsiness after 4 a.m. on Saturday morning, but ia the concluding hours of her swim had continual recourse to smelling salts and cau do cologne.

Over a thousand people were packed into the building, and twice as many were outside unablo to obtain admission, when at 10.30 Miss Gleitze broke tho record she recently established at Stafford Baths. Sho continued for another hour, and the fact that on ono of the last circuits of the baths she adopted the- trndgeon stroke is a trijuto to her wonderful powers of endurance.

Three officials entered the water at tho deep end to lift the swiinme- on to the stretcher. During the last hour the crowd sang community songs.

Following another attempt on the Bristol Channel, Miss Gleitza will proceed to Greece to swim the Hellespont. Then she will return to taeklo the English Channel from tho English side— not yet aeomplished by a woman—and after that attempt a swim the Moray Fjrth, Scotland, and the Irish Sea. She will also make other endurance swims at Hull, Newcastle, and Dundee to try and raise her Wolverhampton record, and, as stated, on 7th November will embark for Now Zealand to try and swim the Cook Strait.

[A cablegram a week or two ago notified that Miss Gleitze, or rather Mrs. Carey as she now is, successfully accomplished the task she had set herself of swimming the Hellespont, making the trip °+ ' tl)(5 wWwk part (four xoile'sj.