Martha Maria Norelius (January 22, 1909 – September 25, 1955) was a Swedish-born American competition
swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, and former world record-holder in five different
freestyle swimming events.[1]
She was first recognized for her swimming and diving skills just after her seventh birthday, at an exhibition at
the Greenbrier pool, where her father was a swimming instructor. He too had been an Olympic swimmer for Sweden and at the Summer Olympics 1912 in Stockholm offered a position in Florida to train the American swimming team. Daughter Martha became very good friends with top swimmer Johnny Weissmüller also trained by Marthas father Charles.[3] At the age of 15, she represented the United States at the
1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.[2][4] Norelius won the gold medal in the women's 400-meter freestyle in 1924, setting a new Olympic record (6:02.2), and edging fellow Americans
Helen Wainwright (6:03.8) and
Gertrude Ederle (6:04.8). Four years later, at the
1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, she won two more gold medals. First, in individual competition, she won the women's 400-meter freestyle, breaking her own record with a new world mark of 5:42.8, and defeating Dutch swimmer
Marie Braun by fifteen seconds. In the women's 4×100-meter freestyle relay event, Norelius and her American teammates
Eleanor Garatti,
Adelaide Lambert and
Albina Osipowich, won the gold medal and set a new world record in both the event final (4:47.6).
Between 1925 and 1929, Norelius won eleven individual
Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) titles and set at least 19 world and 30 American records. She remains the only woman to have received two Olympic back-to-back gold medals in the 400-meter freestyle.[5]
In 1929 she turned professional and won the ten-mile Wrigley Marathon in Toronto. There she met Canadian Olympic rower
Joseph Wright Jr., and later married him on March 15, 1930. They had a daughter Diane born in February 1931.[6][7]