A Kiwi mermaid in Paris, 100 years ago

Exactly 100 years ago, on the eve of another Paris Olympics, young Kiwi Gwitha Shand was the talk of the swimming world.

The 19-year-old from Christchurch had broken the world record in the 440-yard freestyle multiple times leading up to the 1924 Olympics, and was described in newspapers as one of the greatest women’s distance swimmers the world had seen.

Shand was the sole female athlete in the New Zealand team of four at the Paris Games – in fact, the only woman representing Australasia – and was a favourite to win an Olympic medal in the Piscine des Tourelles baths.

But a “chapter of accidents” – from catching a heavy cold when she arrived in the City of Lights, to being rescued from the pool by a future Lord Mayor of Melbourne – conspired against her, illustrating the cruel line that separates Olympic triumph and disaster.

“For me to go and make such an exhibition … I just dread to think what the country will think of me,” Shand wrote in her diary after the devastating moment where, for the first time in her career, she failed to finish a race.

“How disappointed you all at home must be.”

Yet a century later, her family still celebrate the memory of the teenage girl from Canterbury, her world-beating feats in the pool, and her special place in our sporting history.

And although the history books only show ‘DNF’ next to Shand’s name in the results of the women’s 400m freestyle final at the 1924 Olympics, there is so much more to her story.

Shand, who later married and became Gwitha Waghorn, kept a diary through the four months she was away for the 1924 Games. Her daughter Gipsy McKenzie, now 90 and living in Queensland, has the diary, along with her mum’s medal for participating in Paris. Shand’s grandson Mike Woolley, who lives in Northland, has her scrapbook and her pin as New Zealand Olympian No.14.

Gipsy McKenzie is now hard of hearing and speaks to me with the help of her daughter Karen. She says she’s still “very, very proud” of her mum’s swimming achievements. As kids growing up on a farm in Little Akaloa on Banks Peninsula, it was the job of Gipsy and her three siblings to polish their mum’s handsome collection of sporting trophies (she was also an accomplished golfer).

Although the Waghorn children had lessons so they could swim in the bay, their mother never encouraged them to swim competitively. “She said it was too hard,” Gipsy says.

At the age of 14, Shand made her first real splash on the New Zealand swimming scene, winning the 110-yard freestyle at the national championships from another teenage prodigy, Violet Walrond. Over the next five years, Shand and Walrond would have fierce duels over the 50m and 100m distances.

Both young women were initially named in a team of seven for the 1920 Antwerp Olympic Games, but when the team was cut back to four, Shand missed out. Walrond became New Zealand’s first female athlete to compete at an Olympics; the 15-year-old finishing a commendable fifth in the 100m freestyle swum in a murky Belgian canal.

Shand began making her mark in the longer 440-yard (or 400m) freestyle. New Zealand newspapers reported her breaking the world record for the first time in 1921, and the following year, stripping another 12 seconds off the record at an international meet in Hawaii. The media there called her a ‘mermaid with peaches and cream complexion’.  

She took also surfing lessons at Waikiki with Sam Kahanamoku, an Olympic swimming medallist and brother of Duke Kahanamoku – the father of modern surfing and the greatest freestyle swimmer of his era.

In 1923, Shand reportedly took another five seconds off her time racing in Sydney bringing her best down to 6m 9.15s (in comparison the world record today is 3m 55.38s held by Australian Ariarne Titmus). The Christchurch Star wrote: “Miss Shand has lived up to her reputation – that of always displaying her best form in her biggest events”.   

She earned Olympic selection for the 1924 Games the following year. But getting to Paris would be a mission ­– both geographically and financially.

The cost to send a competitor was £390, and the New Zealand Olympic Council was struggling to raise the funds. They declared there wasn’t enough money to send Shand’s trainer, Jack Enwright, or a chaperone for her. To get Shand to Paris, a call went out for public donations in Christchurch, and a hat was passed around on the wharf in Auckland as she boarded the ship Niagara.

“She made it there by the skin of her teeth,” Gipsy says.

Shand’s round trip would cover 30,000 nautical miles. On board the ship crossing the Pacific, Shand tried to keep fit by doing exercises, then known as “physical jerks”. She was unable to exercise on the train trip across Canada, but used the gym on board the Empress of Scotland crossing the Atlantic. She finally got back in the water in London, training there for a week before arriving in France.

She found the weeks leading up to the Games wearisome – little more than training every morning and afternoon up and down the Piscine des Tourelles, the avant-garde pool built especially for the Paris Olympics (incidentally, the 50m pool has just undergone a two-year renovation to be used as a training pool for Olympians and Paralympians at the 2024 Games).

But Shand was making history at every turn. “The New Zealand champion lady swimmer had the unique honour of being the only member of the gentler sex in the Southern Hemisphere to participate in this year’s Olympiad,” wrote the Christchurch Star.

She was the only female athlete presented to Edward Prince of Wales and Prince Henry at a reception given by the British Olympic Committee.

On a “glorious day” for the opening ceremony in the Paris Olympic Stadium, Shand marched in a cream outfit and hat alongside her New Zealand teammates – sprinter Arthur Porritt, boxer Charlie Purdy and fellow swimmer Clarrie Heard.

“I was the only girl amongst two to three hundred men,” Shand wrote in a letter home. “I have never felt so proud as when I stepped into the arena with over 50,000 people looking on. Quite a number of people called out ‘Gwitha’, but I couldn’t find them.”

When it came time for Shand to swim in the first of her two events in Paris, the 400m freestyle, she wasn’t at her best. After her long passage to Europe, she struggled to regain her form. Then she’d caught a heavy cold soon after arriving in Paris, and was feeling ill.

She easily won her heat, in 6m 26s, but struggled in the semifinal, finishing third behind two swimmers she would usually beat. “For me it was agony throughout the race; I couldn’t breathe,” she wrote.

On July 16, the day of the final, Shand wrote in her diary: “I don’t know how to write the dreadful news… I told you in my letter yesterday about my cold. Well, it was my Waterloo.

“Got a beautiful start and was with them the first length. The second, the trouble started. I couldn’t breathe, my throat and nose were blocked. Well, Mother, I nearly collapsed at 200m but managed to do another 100m. But for the life of me I couldn’t finish.

“As long as I live, will I ever forget that day? All my hopes, good times and Jack’s training — not to finish the race.”

As Shand was struggling in the water, Australian swimmer Frank Beaurepaire leapt to her aid.

“[He] had to dive in and help me out of the bath; so you can tell I was done,” Shand wrote.

Beaurepaire – who later became a tyre tycoon and the Lord Mayor of Melbourne – had just won bronze in the men’s 1500m freestyle. The gold medallist in that race, fellow Australian Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton, comforted Shand at the side of the pool.

“Boy took me in his arms and just held me. I thought such a lot of that as I did feel lonely,” she wrote.

Americans took all the medals in that race, with 15-year-old Martha Norelius winning gold. (She was coached by her Olympian father, Charles, who also trained Johnny Weissmüller – winner of three golds in Paris, and later Tarzan in 12 Hollywood movies).

How her country might perceive her failure to finish tortured Shand. “Mother, imagine not finishing, that is what I can’t get over. I’m writing to Jack after this but don’t know how I’m going to do it. That night I went to bed at 7.30, had a double dose of rum and hot lemon and feel a tiny bit better, but I’m still far from well.

“Swim 100m Saturday, and if I’m dying, I will not stop.”

Shand was well enough to return to the pool for the 100m freestyle, finishing second in her heat and third in the semi-final – but not fast enough to go through to the top five final.

Porritt was the only New Zealand to stand on the podium in Paris, winning bronze in the 100m sprint – a race later immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire.

On her way home, Shand swam at the Tailteann Games in Dublin winning gold in the 200m and 400m freestyle. They were her last major races.

Arriving home, Shand told a Lyttelton Times reporter New Zealand would never do well at the Olympic Games “unless each team had its trainer… no one else can understand you.”  If she’d had Enright with her in Paris to advise her, she said, she could have won gold.

Shand retired from competitive swimming after those Games. In 1929, she married Douglas Waghorn, who she’d known since she was a teenager. They raised their four children in Little Akaloa, where Shand died in 1962 at the age of 58.

Three other Kiwi women have made the 400m freestyle final at an Olympic Games since Shand – Rebecca Perrott in 1976, Lauren Boyle in 2012 and Erika Fairweather in 2020. And Fairweather has the best chance of finally stepping onto the podium, 100 years after Shand set the pace.