Katharina Buczek
After the historic Olympic Games were banned for one thousand and five hundred years by Roman Emperor Theodosius I, the famous competition was reborn in modern format on April 6, 1896.
Still, it might be shocking to learn that the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal did so just four years later– despite living during a time of severe male dominance in sports.
Helene de Pourtales was born in New York in 1868 to parents Isaac and Mary Barbey. Isaac was a wealthy Swiss banker; meanwhile, Mary hailed from the Lorillards– an affluent family that owned the Lorillard Tobacco Company.
And Helene’s prominent familial and wealth ties are what allowed her to vacation in Bellevue, Switzerland– where she spent her summer days yachting.
She also held dual citizenship despite being born in the United States– which ultimately allowed Helene to sail for Switzerland in the 1900 Olympic Games.
Although, her ties to the sport of sailing did not just originate from childhood. After marrying a Swiss sailor named Hermann Alexander, Count von Pourtales, at the age of twenty-three, Helene and her husband would frequently sail together around Cannes and on Lake Geneva.
Then, after nearly ten years of marriage, both Helene and Hermann registered for the Olympics together. She was thirty-two years old at the time.
The 1900 Olympic Games marked only the second modern summer iteration of the international competition and the first time female athletes were allowed to compete.
The games were held in Paris and had five categories in which women could enter– tennis, golf, equestrian, croquet, and sailing.
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