On the 9 September 1875, in rough open water Harriet Elphinstone-Dick swam seven miles from Shoreham Harbour to Brighton’s West Pier. She completed the distance in a record making 2 hours and 45 minutes. It was regarded as one of the greatest swimming feats of the time.
Dubbed ‘the Fastest Girl on Earth’, Dorothy Levitt was an early motorist who competed in speed trials and long distance races, setting the Ladies World Speed record in the Brighton Speed Trials of 1905, by driving her Napier racing car at 79.75 mph.
A founder member of the Fabian Women’s group, suffragist and gymnastics teacher, she was president of the Gymnastics Teachers Suffrage Society.
Soviet track and field athlete Galina Petrovna Bystrova won a bronze medal at the 1964 Olympics in the pentathlon.
Community and church leader in Palmerston North (New Zealand) for many years
New Zealand philanthropist
Irish sportswoman
Irish soccer player
For a period in the 1920s Fay Taylour dominated motorcycle racing in both Europe and Australia, gaining fame not as a woman-racer but as one who competed and won at all levels on three continents against both men and women. Despite her successes in that area, her fascist politics tend to dominate her legacy.
New Zealand golfer, community leader