She Was The First Woman To Compete In The Olympic Games And Win A Gold Medal In 1900
After the historic Olympic Games were banned for one thousand and five hundred years by Roman Emperor Theodosius I, the famous competition was reborn in modern format on April 6, 1896.
Still, it might be shocking to learn that the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal did so just four years later– despite living during a time of severe male dominance in sports.
Helene de Pourtales was born in New York in 1868 to parents Isaac and Mary Barbey. Isaac was a wealthy Swiss banker; meanwhile, Mary hailed from the Lorillards– an affluent family that owned the Lorillard Tobacco Company.
And Helene’s prominent familial and wealth ties are what allowed her to vacation in Bellevue, Switzerland– where she spent her summer days yachting.
She also held dual citizenship despite being born in the United States– which ultimately allowed Helene to sail for Switzerland in the 1900 Olympic Games.
Although, her ties to the sport of sailing did not just originate from childhood. After marrying a Swiss sailor named Hermann Alexander, Count von Pourtales, at the age of twenty-three, Helene and her husband would frequently sail together around Cannes and on Lake Geneva.
Then, after nearly ten years of marriage, both Helene and Hermann registered for the Olympics together. She was thirty-two years old at the time.
The 1900 Olympic Games marked only the second modern summer iteration of the international competition and the first time female athletes were allowed to compete.
The games were held in Paris and had five categories in which women could enter– tennis, golf, equestrian, croquet, and sailing.
Iliya Mitskavets – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Helene pioneered women’s legacy in the games, though, as she was both the first woman to compete in the Olympics as well as the first woman to win a gold medal.
She participated in the 1-2 Ton class as just one of three crew members– her nephew and husband– and sailed the boat Lérina.
Lérina was sailed by Helene and her crew in two different races that were scored separately. So, Helene won a gold medal in the first race and a silver medal in the second race.
Following 1900, the number of women participants in the Olympic Games did increase slowly. But incremental growth over the years has pushed women athletes to nearly match male participation rates.
In 1952, the number of women athletes hit ten percent. Then, by 1988, women made up twenty-five percent of the Olympic competitor pool.
And finally, in 2020, women achieved the highest level of participation ever. During those Olympic Games in Tokyo, five thousand and four hundred women competed– raising the ratio to forty-nine percent.
It’s quite interesting that Helene competed as the first woman ever in the Olympics in Paris, and here we are this year with the Olympics being held again in Paris.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
More About:Chicks We Love