100 metres Freestyle, Women

America’s female freestylers matched, and perhaps even outperformed their male equivalents, despite the USOC’s attempts to shield them from any imagined temptations, by housing them well away from Paris and subjecting them to long journeys to and from the Olympic pool. All three Americans matched or bettered the world record in the heats and, although the semi-finals saw the field edge up on them slightly, there was little doubt as to who would fill the medal positions.

Mariechen Wehselau opened a lead on her compatriots at the half way mark, but Ethel Lackie, at 17, marginally the youngest of the USA’s teenage trio, put on a finishing burst that took her to the wall just ahead of Wehselau, with Trudy Ederle back in third. Ederle remains, to this day, the youngest swimmer to set a world record, which she did at the age of 12 years 298 days. She was also the first woman to swim the English Channel.