Inge Sørensen

Inge Sørensen was a Danish breaststroke swimmer, born in 1924 in Skovshoved near Copenhagen, who became the youngest individual Olympic medal winner in history. At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin she was only twelve years old when she took the bronze medal in the 200 metre breaststroke. She won a European title in the same event in London in 1938, collected nine Danish championships and two Nordic championships between 1936 and 1944, and set fourteen Danish records. In 1939 she broke the world records at 400 and 500 metres breaststroke, and in 1941 she became the first Danish woman to swim the 200 metres breaststroke in under three minutes. The Second World War ended her competitive career; she later taught swimming and gymnastics and lived in the United States until her death in 2011.