Gertrude Ederle had her goggles sealed with paraffin to render them water tight. Gertrude possessed a contract from both the "New York Daily News" and "Chicago Tribune" when she attempted the Channel swim a second time. The money she received paid her expenses and provided her with a modest salary. It also gave her a bonus in exchange for exclusive rights to her personal story. The "Daily News" and the "Chicago Tribune" got the jump on every other newspaper in America. Another American swimmer in France in 1926 to try and swim the Channel was Lillian Cannon from Baltimore. She was also
Enrique Tirabocchi successfully appealed to Benito Mussolini to retrieve the award. Tirabocchi credited American Gertrude Ederle with having made "a marvelous swim" in 1926, when she finished in 14 hours and 39 minutes, cutting almost two full hours off his record time, saying that her pace was not a matter of luck but was part of the "excellent constitution... [and] great powers of resistance" needed to complete the swim. Enrique Tirabocchi Enrique Tirabocchi (variously spelled as Enrico Tiraboschi) was an Argentinian marathon swimmer who in August 1926 became the fourth person to successfully swim across the English Channel. He was the first