Ontario Swim

Blind men struggled, strong men collapsed; screaming women were bitten by eels at Toronto. All for a prize of $30,000.

There was a mighty splash as 173 swimmers, most of them naked, all of them thick with grease, plunged into Lake Ontario, in a 21-mi. race from Toronto, over a triangular course, to Toronto. They thrashed, kicked and ploughed the water. Soon the strongest left the milling mob and George Young, hero of the Catalina Island swim, was leading the marathon. Accidents happened, men and women were doubled up with cramps, weaklings withdrew from the chill waters; the drowning were saved in the early 'miles, and the field thinned. After four miles a baker, kneading the water as the kneaded dough in his little bake shop in his native Germany, sprinted doggedly, passed George Young. A little further and cramps twisted Young's stomach muscles, and the first favorite was hauled from the swim.

All through the long day they plodded painfully through the water. Favorite after favorite burned up and was pulled into his pilot boat. Michael Hamburg labored miles, indomitably behind the tinkling bell of his pilot boat. He, stone blind, finally gave up. One man was seized with mumps. Edward Keating, winner of the Lake George marathon, was dragged out, cramped. Lee J. Smith, legless swimmer, lost his chance for the prize by rescuing a drowning opponent. Byron Summers, the California "flying fish," swam to the tune of a band in his boat, swam many miles, caught cramps when in second place. Ethel Hertle, 15 miles out and in third place, collapsed with cold. Edith Heden, Finn, screamed with pain and was taken out, bitten by eels. "Women have a horror of that sort of thing. It makes them sick," said Miss Daisy King Shaw, who was also bitten by eels. Eels like grease.

As evening turned up the silver sliver of a new moon in the sky the German baker, Ernst Vierkoetter, kneaded his way, machinelike, down the last mile. He stumbled up the breakwater steps happy. He had won $30,000. The crowd sang "Deutschland Uber Alles." Four hours later another foreign baker, George Michel of France, propelled his thick bulk along the same last mile. A hand flashlight played on the tricolor of France, fluttering from his pilot boat. As he hit the stone steps he went limp, his head down as though praying or crying. Then he grinned and was hauled out. He had won $7,500. Three hours and a half later, after 19 hours in the chill water, fat William Erickson of New York, came slowly hauling himself along with an overhead side stroke. Crushes of newspaper were thrown blazing on the water to light him home. He walked up the steps dazed, happy. He had won $2,500.

No others finished.