2 — Continued ...

- Despite those clothes, Annette managed to swim three-quarters of the width of the English Channel, which separates southern England from northern France.

- Annette also invented the sport of dancing in water, which formally joined the Olympic sports in 1984 under the name artistic swimming.

- But perhaps the most important thing Annette did in her life was insist upon freedom of dress for women athletes. In 1902 in the United States, after resisting police who judged her swimsuit improper, she was arrested and put on trial. She won in court on the condition that she cover her body with a cloak before entering the water. She designed a swimsuit that became known by her own name.

- Despite those clothes, Annette managed to swim three-quarters of the width of the English Channel, which separates southern England from northern France.

- Annette also invented the sport of dancing in water, which formally joined the accepted Olympic sports in 1984 under the name artistic swimming.

- But perhaps the most important thing Annette did in her life was insist upon freedom of dress for women athletes. In 1902 in the United States, after resisting police who judged her swimsuit improper, she was arrested and put on trial. She won in court on the condition that she cover her body with a cloak before entering the water.

- In court, Annette had emphasised that discrimination between women and men had to end, although even this discrimination had not prevented her from defeating the male swimmers of her time and setting world records in long-distance and endurance swimming. After winning the court case, Annette designed a swimsuit that became known throughout the world by her name. It was after this that the moral policing that measured women’s skirts on beaches in England and the United States was finally swept away.

- Annette went further still, appearing in more than fourteen films and eventually receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her 1916 film *A Daughter of the Gods* was among the first films in the industry to involve an investment of more than one million dollars. A film about her life was also made in 1952 and included very beautiful scenes of ballet in water.

- Annette also established herself as a writer and, in addition to her autobiography, wrote a collection of stories for children.

Finally, I want to write a few sentences about the author of the children’s book *Annette Feels Free*. Kitty Mazika, the author of this book, herself lost one eye to cancer at the age of three. She spent all the years of her childhood and youth confronting the difficulties of accepting her physical disability and the limitations it created for her, but by overcoming them she was able to establish herself as a children’s author.