Six pioneering female athletes circled Manhattan before Diana Nyad:

Ida Elionsky (1916) Image: courtesy of Joanna Langfield.	Mille Gade (1921) Image: Vejle Amts Folkeblad.	Lottie Schoemmell (1926) Image: City of Toronto Archives
Lillian Garrick (1929) Image: c. 1944, courtesy of Denis Dunann	Anne Benoit (1930) Image: City of Toronto Archives	Diane Struble (1959) Image: Times Union (photo #55 in slide show).

 

Does Diana Nyad believe she was first?

Not unless she lies to herself as convincingly as she lies to everyone else.

Nyad researched the swim before she attempted it in 1975. She documents her findings in her 1978 memoir, Other Shores:

Ida Elionsky’s time was a very respectable 11 hours, 35 minutes. There were others who made the swim . . . but I will simply mention the male and female record holders. Diane Struble plunged into the Battery waters on August 15, 1959, and reached her original starting point in 11 hours, 21 minutes. (p. 57)

So Nyad knew the names and details of at least two and probably more of her predecessors. By 1981, though, she began claiming to be first, and she never stopped — except for a few months’ break after she got caught.

In 2011, CNN, one of Nyad’s sponsors, investigated her Manhattan claim and learned she was lying. Nyad feigned ignorance. In a blog post she later deleted, Nyad declared: “I am quite frankly stunned to hear now that this title is probably not mine to claim.”

But Nyad was desperate to be first. So less than a year later, she stole back the title from Ida Elionsky. In a May 2012 Elle profile, Rivka Galchen reports that no women had swum Manhattan before Nyad.

A few months later, Nyad declares on camera that she was “the first woman to swim around Manhattan Island, you know, and that sort of thing” (Diana: A Documentary, 4:00). Diana devotes an entire chapter of her 2015 memoir, Find a Way, to her Manhattan first.

More recently, Nyad admits on Faceback that she made a mistake, but she blames it on journalists. She says, "I was misinformed by some NY press back at the time about being the first woman." But she doesn't address how she managed to get it right in 1978, then get it wrong for the next 45 years.

In the same Facebook response, Nyad says that she apologized to her predecessors' family members and that "they were each of them extremely gracious." But she hadn't spoken to any family members by the time she wrote that. She did speak to one afterwards. I hear they had a pleasant conversation.

 

What did the press say?

In a 2011 blog post, Nyad claimed that “the paper of record,” presumably the New York Times, called her “the first woman ever to swim around the most famous island in the world.” But in a lengthy account the Times published the day after the swim, Frank Prial writes that “the old record was set by Byron Sommers in 1927. In 1959 Diane Strubel made the trip in 11 hours 59 minutes.”

Many other newspapers also mention Struble. None call Nyad the first.

Here’s the timeline:

by 1975	Nyad learns that Ida Elionsky, Diane Struble, and others, had circled Manhattan.
1975, Oct	Nyad swims around the island. In an article that appeared the day afterward, The New York Times notes that “in 1959 Diane Strubel made the trip in 11 hours 59 minutes.”
1978	In her first memoir, Other Shores, Nyad writes about Elionsky, Struble, and others.
1981	Nyad claims to be the first woman to swim around Manhattan Island, which she continues to do until . . .
2011	CNN investigates at the behest of Morty Berger, founder of NYC Swim, and learns Nyad wasn’t first.
2011, Jun	In “History Rewritten . . . ,” Nyad writes: “[I]magine my mind-boggling surprise . . . to hear that there were in fact one or maybe two or maybe even as many as half a dozen women who did swim around Manhattan back in the early days!!!!!”
2012, May	Nyad tells Elle magazine she was first.
2012, Jul	Nyad says on camera that she was “the first woman to swim around Manhattan Island.”
2015	Nyad’s second memoir, Find a Way, appears. She devotes a chapter to her Manhattan first.

Toward the end of “History Rewritten,” Nyad proclaims, “I hereby relinquish my title as the first woman.” But she had nothing to relinquish. She lied about being first, then lied about lying about it. “I take both joy and pride,” she continues, “in honoring all great women athletes of all eras.” Trying to erase her predecessors from history, however, sounds more like malice and envy than respect.

 

Further Reading 

Diana Nyad wasn’t the only swimmer who falsely claimed to be the first woman to circle Manhattan. Diane Struble did too, but it appears she made an honest mistake. Harold Schoemmell, the son of Lottie Schoemmell, the third woman around Manhattan, met Struble at the end of her swim. He showed her a clipping about his mother. Struble never again claimed to be first.

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