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Pioneering Women in Sport 17 As nearly as I can make out, reducing the problem to actual figures, it took me about three months, with an average of fifteen minutes’ practice daily, to learn, first, to pedal; second, to turn; third, to dismount; and fourth, to mount independently this most mysterious animal. January 20th will always be a red-letter bicycle day, because although I had already mounted several times with no hand on the rudder, some good friend had always stood by to lend moral support; but summoning all my force, on this day, I mounted and started off alone. From that hour the spell was broken; Gladys was no more a mystery: I had learned all her kinks, had put a bridle in her teeth, and touched her smartly with the whip of victory. Consider, ye who are of a considerable chronology: in about thirteen hundred minutes, or, to put it more mildly, in twenty-two hours, or, to put it most mildly of all, in less than a single day as the almanac reckons time—but practically in two days of actual practice—amid the delightful surroundings of the great outdoors, and inspired by the bird-songs, the color and fragrance of an English posy-garden, in the company of devoted and pleasant comrades, I had made myself master of the most remarkable, ingenious, and inspiring motor ever yet devised upon this planet. Moral: Go thou and do likewise! y THE WORLD-BEATING VIKING GIRL OF TEXAS ’Twas a lucky day for American athletics when Ole Didrickson and his better half came over the Atlantic from rugged Norway. Under the Texas sun they prospered and raised seven children. The sixth of these was a slim, wiry lass with the blue fire of sea-king ancestors in her eyes and the actinic alchemy of American sunshine in her system. The Viking capacity for berserk rage in battle filtered down to the Texas maid as a disposition to attack the most prodigious feats with hot resolve and a soaring confidence in her own power of achievement. Her name was Mildred, but she had another name—her mother vows it is not a nickname—that made her a rival of one of the most famous and popular Americans of history—Babe Ruth. Yes, and Babe Didrickson, heroine of the Olympic Games, breaker of records, and winner of championships in an amazing variety of strenuous From Literary Digest 114 (27 August 1932) 26–28. © 1932 Time Inc. Reprinted by permission. 18 WOMEN AND SPORTS IN THE UNITED STATES athletic sports, threatens to outdistance the home-run king as a figure of captivating interest to all nations of the world. “Perhaps,” suggests one of her home-town papers, the Dallas News, “she supplies the proof that the comparatively recent turn of women to strenuous field sports is developing a new super-physique in womanhood, an unexpected outcome of suffragism which goes in for sports as well as politics, and threatens the old male supremacy even in the mere routine of making a living.” Grantland Rice, after playing golf with her, a novice, and seeing her beat his own score, proclaims her “without any question the athletic phenomenon of all time, man or woman.” The Dallas Journal, enumerating her home-town’s reasons for honoring her, includes these items: Unofficially has equaled every Olympic record for women. Winner single-handed of the National A.A.U. women’s track and field meet in Chicago July 16. Twice given all-American honors as forward on Golden Cyclone girls’ basketball team. Holder of the world’s record for baseball throw. Has approximately 100 medals won in individual competition. Miss Didrickson herself is quoted: “I brought back eight first-place medals of gold and two second-place medals of silver, and a bronze medal for fourth place. I made eight world’s records in the last month, and I am terribly, terribly happy.” Babe Didrickson broke four world’s records in Olympic track and field events. First, the javelin throw. Then two in the 80-meter hurdles—first she smashed the previous world’s record, and then in the finals she smashed her own. And her fourth was in the high jump, which, as we shall see, did not end as happily as most of her contests. Sports authorities hail her as Marvelous Mildred, and “the one-girl track team.” One of the most recent bits of news about her is that she will...

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