Greta Marie Andersen, a legendary open-water swimmer, world record holder and world and Olympic champion, passed away in Solvang at the age of 95.
The native of Copenhagen, Denmark, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1953, died on Feb. 6 in her home, the World Open Water Swimming Association announced.
Andersen broke 18 world marathon swim records and was the first woman to complete five crossings of the English Channel and the first to win the race across it in consecutive years, 1957 and 1958.
Among her other amazing accomplishments: in 1958, she became the first person to complete a round-trip Catalina Island-Long Beach swim, a distance of more than 46 miles. She was in the water for nearly 27 hours.
She did the Catalina Channel crossing four times.
She beat all comers in a 26-mile endurance swim in Guaymas, Mexico, and she beat both men and women in a 55-mile race in Lake Michigan.
She has been called the greatest female swimmer in history, according to Bruce Wigo, former president of the International Swimming Hall of Fame, which honored Anderson with its lifetime achievement award in 2015.
“She often beat all of the men,” he said.
Wigo is the father of UCSB men’s water polo coach and three-time U.S. Olympian Wolf Wigo.
Andersen competed for Denmark at the 1948 Olympic Games in London, and won gold medals in the 100-meter freestyle and 400 free relay.
In that same Olympics, she nearly drowned while competing in the individual 400 free.
According to a story in the New York Times, she was given an injection to forestall her period, fainted and sank to the bottom of the pool. She was pulled out and resuscitated.
She returned to competition and continued to break records, setting a world mark for the 400 free in 1949. She also competed in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, but was not at full strength due to a knee surgery and did not win a medal.
She came to the U.S. and lived in Long Beach, later moving to Huntington Beach. She ran the Greta Andersen Swim School in Los Alamitos for decades.
In an Orange County Register feature on the Most Influential People of Orange County in 2015, Andersen said her work philosophy is: “You don’t think about what’s ahead. You forget about it and you just swim.”
Andersen is survived by her husband, Andre Veress, a doctor.