Daring flyers over Geneva
The Gordon Bennett Cup attracted hundreds of spectators to Geneva in August 1922.Image: Swiss National Museum
On August 6, 1922, a world-renowned ballooning competition started in Geneva: the Gordon Bennett Cup.
Christophe Vuilleumier / Swiss National Museum
In 1906, the wealthy American publisher James Gordon Bennett Junior (1841–1918), founder of the International Herald Tribune, in Paris the first balloon race. It was the cornerstone of Gordon Bennett Cup. The sports-loving patron had already launched a motorsport event under the same name six years earlier, which paved the way for future Grand Prix events.
Colorful, restless, and always surrounded by women, she had served on a Union warship during the American Civil War and gained extensive experience as a seaman. As early as 1876, his love of seafaring prompted him to Gordon Bennett Cup to donate to an international sailing race.
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In 1906 he had a simple idea: the team that could land farthest from the starting point with no other motive than the air currents would win. In 1921, Paul Armbruster from Bern and Louis Ansermier from Geneva won the coveted trophy when they landed on an Irish island after taking off from Brussels.
However, the two men were not the first Swiss to win the trophy. As early as 1908, two Swiss had flown the furthest. Emil Messner and Theodor Schaeck had it with theirs balloon Helvetia to Bergseth in Norway, covering a distance of 1190 kilometres.
The regulations stipulated that the next staging of the competition had to be organized by the country of the winning team. And so, in Zurich in 1909 and in Geneva in 1922, there were two major events within just a few years.
The Geneva Flying Race in August 1922 was a true sporting festival, since the balloon competition was not the only event. At the same time, the Geneva shipping company is following the French-speaking Switzerland rowing championships and a number of regattas through.
The launch of the gas balloons was planned off the lake in Châtelaine. On August 3rd, the third day of the competition, the balloons will take to the skies every three minutes to the national anthem of their country of origin. 20 teams from seven countries took part in this fun adventure: 2 Belgian, 3 Italian, 3 French, 2 Spanish, 2 American, 2 English and 6 Swiss.
Some may still remember the written film «The daring men in their flying machines» from 1965. Terry-Thomas, Robert Morley and Jean-Pierre Cassel engage in a race full of incidents, inspired by the race announced by James Gordon Bennett.
The situation in Geneva in 1922 was very similar. On the program for August 3rd is a kind of fox hunt with cars racing along narrow, mostly unpaved dirt roads. In this so-called automobile balloon rally, the balloons launched at the same time served as “foxes” for the cars. Today one could hardly imagine an international sports event on our streets and across country – because no participant was content with the streets – such. Other times, other customs!
Two balloons from these “daring men” have already landed near Perly-Certoux. The first war controlled by last year’s winner Paul Armbruster Bern. His journey ended just a few hundred meters from Saint-Julien, during the second, also Swiss K.-6 touched down gently next to customs, to the astonishment of the border officials present. After an epic race, Swiss John Gallay and Major Gerber took the win l’Azureaa balloon designed by Geneva industrialist Léon Givaudan.
However, the highlight of the spectacle is on Sunday, August 6th, with the long-distance race. In front of 50,000 spectators in the afternoon, the competitors set out for a goal that nobody knew in advance. The French Balloon Picardy should end up in Hungarian More, same as American L’Uncle Samwho also came to Hungary and reached safe ground again in Tapio.
However, the Belgians Ernest Demuyter and A. Veenstra were the winners Belgium. They cover a distance of 1,372.1 kilometers and reach, among other places, Ocnitza in Romania. Ernest Demuyter had already won the competition in 1920 and would also win in 1923, 1924, 1936 and 1937. By the way: Paul Armbruster was seventh and Louis Ansermier was 17th.
Other posts adapted from the National Museum Blog:
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