by Meg Keller-Marvin / ISHOF
On Monday, June 8, ISHOF’s 1973 Honor Diver, Greta Johansson Brandsten, was honored in her hometown of Stockholm, Sweden by the Sveriges Centralförening för Idrottens Främjande (SCIF), which in English, is the Swedish Central Association for the Promotion of Sports. The SCIF was founded on May 7, 1897 in the Royal Palace in Stockholm and today, the association still enjoys royal protection. It was also thanks to the SCIF that Sweden was selected to host the fifth Olympics in 1912, known as “The Sunshine Olympics,” that Greta Johansson competed in and won Olympic gold.
Greta Johansson in bronze
Swedish Sculptor, Peter Linde created a bronze sculpture of Greta Johansson as she was during her diving days in Stockholm which was unveiled before a crowd on Monday afternoon.
Jens Lind & Peter Linde, sculptor Ulrika Knape, ISHOF Honoree & Jens Lind
Journalist, Jens Lind, who created the documentary, “Guld Greta”, about Johansson, was the moderator of Monday’s event. After Rajne Söderberg, Chairman of the SCIF, welcomed the crowd, Jens Lind moderated a question and answer session from several individuals. The first was the well known Swedish sculptor, Peter Linde who spoke about how he created the sculpture and what went into this thought process. Next, Lind interviewed, 1982 Honor Diver and 1972 Olympic gold medalist, Ulrika Knape. Knape spoke about winning her gold medal, what it was like and a little about Greta and the sculpture itself.
The Royal Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Heir Apparent and Meg Keller-Marvin, ISHOF
Lastly, Jens interviewed me asking about ISHOF and if I remembered meeting Greta when she was inducted. I did not, as I was only 10 years old at the time but there are photos of me being there. Lind asked about the purpose of the Swimming Hall of Fame, I clarified that it was not only about swimming, but that it represented all the aquatic disciplines, including Greta’s sport of diving, as well as water polo, artistic swimming, and masters swimming.
Princess Victoria and Rajne Soderberg cutting the ribbon
After the interviews, Jens invited the Royal Crown Princess, Victoria, Heir Apparent and Rajne Söderberg, Chairman of the SCIF to cut the ribbon on the sculpture. Many photos were taken with the new bronze sculpture, sitting on the banks of the Baltic Sea, where the swimming and diving events took place in 1912.
Ulrika Knape, Meg Keller-Marvin, Mathz Lindberg (Ulrika’s husband)
There was a nice size crowd of 75-100 people in attendance. Besides Crown Princess Victoria, Ulrike Knape and her husband, Mathz Lindberg and the others mentioned, also in attendance was the President of the Swedish Swimming Federation, Pia Zätterström, the National Team Captain, Sofia Garametsos, along with many Board Members of SCIF. It was interesting to hear about their different sports represented by the Board Members, including: pistol shooting, basketball, ice hockey, water polo and track and field.
We were invited to visit the 1912 Olympic Stadium which is now the oldest Olympic stadium still in existence. Even today, it is still used for major international track meets, which was GREAT to hear! We also got to tour the SCIF offices inside the stadium, which housed quite a bit of wonderful memorabilia, much of it from 1912.
The original 1912 Stockholm Olympic Poster
Read about Greta here:
Sweden’s Gift To the World of Diving
Greta Johansson Brandsten was born on January 9, 1895. She learned to
swim and dive in Stockholm’s municipal baths with free tickets issued
through her public school. Swedish children were then required to take effi-
ciency swimming tests that included breaststroke, backstroke, underwater
swimming, deep sea diving to pick up objects, long distance swimming, and
“trampoline diving” from 5m and 10m heights.
Greta enjoyed her swimming and at age 15 she became the Swedish national breaststroke champion. The next year (1911) she won the Nationals again, this time in the 100m freestyle and in high diving where she was self taught.
In 1912, at the ripe old age of 17 she won an Olympic gold medal in her hometown Stockholm, was decorated by her King, and won diving’s most coveted award, The Countess de Casa Miranda Challenge Cup, presented to her by the Countess herself (Kristina Nilsson, one of the world’s most famous opera singers).
After the Olympics, Greta taught swimming and diving in a small town in the south of Sweden. Then she received a letter from one of her Olympic teammates, Ernst Brandsten, who invited her to join him in America as his wife.
Brandsten was living in San Francisco where he was a professional diver who made his living by diving off the topmasts of tall ships and giving swimming lessons. What spurred the invitation was his hiring as a physical education teacher at the University of California, where he taught swimming diving and gymnastics.
When she arrived, Greta joined him not only as his wife, but as the women’s instructor. Moving across the bay in 1915, the two divers became a famous team as Ernst coached Stanford swimming from 1915 to 1948 and several U.S. Olympic diving teams, and generally helped make the USA the superpower of world diving into the 1980’s.
Greta never returned to Sweden and there is little trace of her there. Until now. When Swedish television was doing a documentary on the “Sunshine Olympics” as the 1912 Stockholm Games are known, Jens Lind (pictured on right) came to Ft. Lauderdale and the International Swimming Hall of Fame. The film, soon to be available through ISHOF, has won numerous international awards.
Read Greta’s Honoree bio from 1973 here: https://ishof.org/honoree/honoree-greta-johanson-brandsten/