Cécile Robert
Robert was born in around 1883 as the daughter of a swimming teacher at Lake Neuchâtel. She started with swimming when she was ten years old. She was training with her father and her youngher sister Marthe Robert in Lake Neuchâtel. They swam all year long, even in the winter. She started with training with a 100 metre at full speed. In 1905 she crosses the lake during a race, a distance of 7.6 kilometres, together with her sister in 2 hours and 50 minutes. In this race she was faster than painter Philipp Ritter. Behind her 15 men gave up.