Greta Andersen, Champion Marathon Swimmer, Dies at 95

Greta Andersen in Dover, England, after winning her second race in a row across the English Channel in 1958. She broke 18 world records in open-water marathon swimming.Credit...Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesIt was 3 a.m. on Oct. 5, 1958, when Greta Andersen emerged from the icy surf onto the beach at Emerald Bay, on Catalina Island off the California coast, bleeding, bruised and numb with cold, as The Los Angeles Times reported a year later.

She had been in the water for nearly 27 hours and swum more than 46 miles, becoming the first person to swim round trip from the island to Long Beach. Her husband, John Sonnichsen, had followed her in a rowboat. When they met up on the cabin cruiser that…