Sybil Bauer - The First Baroness of Backstroke
The American winner of the first Olympic backstroke title for women, at Paris 1924, set 23 World records between 1921 and 1924. A day had been set for her marriage to Ed Sullivan in June 1926 but she fell ill, and cancer was the cause of her passing in 1927
On this day, February 9, in 1924, 18-year-old American Sybil Bauer set the second of her two 200m backstroke World records - the first two official standards in the event - when she took 3 seconds off her own mark in 3:03.8 in Miami.
Sybil Lorina Bauer was born one of four siblings on September 18, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois, to Carl and Johanna Torgerson Bauer, the daughter of Norwegian parents who had emigrated to the U.S. She learned to swim at Loon Lake, where her parents had a summer home.
While a pupil at Chicago's Schurz High School, where she graduated in 1922, Bauer trained under the guidance of Bill Bachrach at the Illinois Athletic Club (IAC) in pool and program where her contemporaries and teammates included fellow Olympic champions of 1924, Johnny Weissmuller (100, 200, 4x200 free), Bob Skelton (200 breast) and Ethel Lackie (100 and 4x100 free).
Bauer is best remembered for three of her outstanding achievements and the tragedy of her passing at just 23 years of age. In chronological order:
- in 1922, she also became the first (and last) swimmer to swim faster than the men's World record in an official distance in the pool, in an event that would become obsolete.
- in 1924, at the Paris Olympic Games, she claimed gold in the 100m backstroke at a time when there were just four individual events and one relay for women at the Games, as opposed to 17 individual events and four relays come the 2028 Olympics in the pool, the marathon making it 18 solo golds to race for at the Games.
- in 1927, on January 31 at the age of 23, cancer took her life.
The feature in full follows ...
