Inge Sørensen took up swimming at the age of 8 and in 1936, at age 12, won bronze in the 200 m breaststroke at the 1936 Olympics. At 12 years and 24 days old, Sørensen remains, as of 2017, the youngest individual Olympic medalist and is third in the all-time youngest Olympic medalist list, trailing only Dimitrios Loundras and Luigina Giavotti, who won team medals. Sørensen also won the 200 m breaststroke at the 1938 European Championships and was a nine-time Danish breaststroke champion in 1936-44 and won the Nordic championships in 1937 and 1939. She also set three world records. In 1937 she clocked 8:01.9 in the 500 m breaststroke and in 1939 lowered this mark to 7:58.8. In 1939 she set her third world record by clocking 6:16.1 in the 400 m breaststroke.
Sørensen retired from sports during World War II and, after graduating from Ester Berners Institute in 1946, worked as a swimming instructor in Denmark and Sweden, which eliminated her from the amateur ranks. Sørensen later married engineer Janus Tabur and the couple lived in South Africa and Canada, before moving to the United States in 1951, where they settled in New Jersey.
Denmark