Ederle earned a second individual Olympic bronze medal, this time in the women's 400-meter freestyle, at the 1924 Paris Games.
On July 20, 1924, Gertrude Ederle added a second individual bronze medal to her Olympic haul, finishing third in the women's 400-meter freestyle at the Paris Games. The longer distance event tested endurance as much as speed, foreshadowing the extraordinary stamina she would later display in open-water marathon swimming.
Coming just one day after her bronze in the 100-meter freestyle, this medal confirmed Ederle's status as one of the most complete swimmers in the world, competitive across the full spectrum from sprints to distance events. Together with her relay gold, she left the 1924 Olympics with three medals, an outstanding result for a teenager still in the early years of her competitive career.
Her performance at Paris cemented her reputation heading into the record-breaking exhibitions of the mid-1920s and her ambitious attempts on open-water distance swimming, including the swim across New York Bay in 1925 and, most famously, the English Channel in 1926. The Olympic bronze in the 400m freestyle remains a key marker of her transition from track-and-pool sprinting toward the endurance feats for which she is best remembered.