The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 27

GALVESTON COUNTY, TEXAS SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1999 Bll SPORTS Pioneering athlete looking forward to birthday; new category awaits her Bv JEAN CHR1STENSEN I By JEAN CHR1STENSEN The Associated Press HONOLULU Birthdays are more special these days to Aileen Riggin Soule, and not just because she's 93. A pioneering athlete who won a gold medal in diving at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, Soule is looking forward to turning 95 so she can compete in a new master's age division. She already holds six world swimming records in the 90-94 age group. But her springboard diving days are behind her. "I don't want to tackle it anymore," said Soule, who is the nation's oldest living female Olympic gold medalist.

"You have to be precise." The 14-year-old girl from New York and her 17 female teammates almost didn't get a chance to compete in 1920 because officials were concerned about them traveling with the team's 331 men. Heavy chaperoning blunted those fears, and the young women took care of any other concerns that they weren't athletically primed. Ethelda Bleibtrey of the United States won gold medals in all three swimming events and the U.S. women lost only one aquatic event: platform diving. With the 80th anniversary of those games approaching, friends in Hawaii hope that will bring her some recognition at next September's Olympics in Sydney.

Soule said she'd be honored to attend, but not because she's hungry for recognition. Rather, she, like few others, can appreciate how far the Olympics have come for female athletes. She does not understate her own role, or that of her teammates in Antwerp, in creating competitive opportunities for women. "I thiTik we were responsible for giving it to them," she said. "Every little breakthrough may have been small at the time, but it added up.

There was nobody to follow. We were the first ones." Though Soule says she could be in better shape, she gives the opposite impression, running her own errands around Honolulu and answering fan mail that can fill a grocery sack. She trains for an hour three times a day in a nearby swimming pool or at WaiMM Beach, where she has lived since her second husband, Howard Soule, died in 1981. Her first husband, Navy doctor Dwight Young, died in World War H. Soule attributes her longevity to swimming, which transformed an 11-year-old who barely survived Spanish influenza to a toned and dexterous teen-ager.

parts, Soule took a liking to diving and found that her ballet training helped her point her toes in such a way that her 65- pound, 4-foot-10 body hit the water without a splash. In war-impoverished Belgium, the aquatic events were held in a muddy canal Soule remembers her fear of getting stuck on the bottom. After earning 539.9 points in the springboard competition to beat Wainwright, she received a victory trophy from King Albert. Soule also competed in the 1924 Olympics in Paris, winning the silver in the springboard teammate Elizabeth Becker won the gold and the bronze in the 100-meter backstroke with a time of 1:28.2. After Ederle's Channel swim, Soule joined her and Wainwright in a cross-country swimming and diving exhibition in 1927.

Soule traveled the world on her own in 1930, putting on diving exhibitions and teaching clinics in Spain, France, Eng- land, Sweden, Egypt, Japan and Hawaii, appearing with five- time Olympic swimming gold medalist and "Tarzan" movie star Johnny Weissmuller in Paris. She also danced in "Roman Scandals," skated in Sonja Henie's "One in a Million," and organized, coached and starred in Billy Rose's first Aquacade. She broke through another gender barrier in journalism, writing columns on women's sports for The New York Evening Post, the London Morning Post and McCall's, among others. In a 1931 article for Love Mirror magazine, she cheered the nation's new exercise consciousness. "I believe the girls of our age have probably been the most benefited by all of this," she wrote.

"We can thank our lucky stars that we are no longer expected to sit by the fireside and knit, while watching our brothers get the most of the fun out of life." Aileen Riggin Soule, then Aileen Riggin, of the United States smiles after receiving a trophy for fancy diving from King Albert at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. A pioneering athlete who won a gold medal in diving at the 1920 Olympics. Soule is looking forward to turning 95 so she can compete in a new master's age division. She already holds six world swimming records in the 90-94 age group. But her springboard diving days are behind her.

frippery and silly business." Watching her male counter- Her journey to three Olympic medals was a quick one. Aileen Riggin spent her early childhood in the Philippines before moving back to New York on the recommendation of a doctor who treated her for anemia. There, she studied ballet at the Metropolitan Opera School of Ballet and joined a girls' swim team coached by Louis de B. Handley of the New York Athletic Club. Her training partners included future Olympic medal- ists Helen Wainwright and Gertrude Ederle, who in 1926 became the first woman to swim the English Channel.

As Soule's schoolteacher mother marched down Fifth Avenue with fellow suffragettes, the young girls on the swim team made their own statements, shedding the cumbersome stockings that were part of women's swimwear and donning one-piece suits showing their bare legs. "At this time, Hollywood was coming out with its bathing beauties," Soule said. "We didn't want to compete with Hollywood. We wanted to be sportswomen and not associated with tfeed are and a Bfr Of Surf Speci Gift GULF COAST ALCOHOL TOBACCO Certification School Weekly Classes Call tor Schedule' f281) 337-3134 eu te (409) 762-8364 Owners Roy Carol Kirkpatrick 3711 A Fatta Dr. Dickinson Times AT RSdgemont Ugh AvofabieAt State, tuuL rflt tytutei Otte.

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Fireworks display begins at dark approximately 7:00 pm and is choreographed to music. Music for fireworks show can also be heard on Radio FM 89.7 3-D Glasses, refreshments and Santa will be available during program. Anyone wishing to participate in the parade can contact Parks and Recreation at (409) 643-5990..