Ella Maillart

Biographical information

RolesCompeted in Olympic Games
SexFemale
Full nameElla•Maillart
Used nameElla•Maillart
Born20 February 1903 in Genève (Geneva), Genève (SUI)
Died27 March 1997 in Chandolin, Valais (SUI)
NOC Switzerland

Biography

Ella Maillart was a Swiss travel writer photographer and sportswoman. Maillart was born in 1903 Genève to a wealthy Swiss fur trader and a Danish mother. As a child Maillart read multiple adventure books and enjoyed browsing through maps. Along with her best friend, she took an interest in sailing on Lake Genève. When they were 20, they both sailed from Cannes to Corsica before heading on to Sardinia, Sicily, and Greece. Maillart then competed at the 1924 Paris Olympics in sailing. At the same time Maillart was also captain of the Swiss field hockey team. After the Olympics Maillart participated in the World Championships in Alpine skiing from 1930 to 1934.

In the 1930s Maillart began travelling, going to the Caucasus Mountains with some Russian students, returning via Crimea and crossing the Black Sea. The journey was the subject of Maillart’s first book. Maillart’s travels continued with journeys across the Tian Shan mountains of Central Asia and across deserts to avoid Russian checkpoints. After a meeting with British writer Peter Fleming, she asked him the question “How do I get into the Soviet Republic in South China?”. During 1935 the pair of them travelled across China from east to west, a journey that took seven months.

Maillart’s next adventure was in 1937 when she returned to Asia, travelling to Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. While in Lebanon Maillart wrote another book about her latest travels, which became a bestseller. Two years later Maillart travelled from Genève to Kabul by car accompanied by Swiss writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach. When they arrived in Kabul their trip was curtailed by the outbreak of World War II.

Maillart then travelled to Tiruvannamalai in the south of India, spending the duration of the war there before returning to Europe in 1945. In India Maillart wrote another book of her adventures with her cat as her companion. In 1951 Maillart made her first trip to Nepal. She would visit the country more than 40 times up to 1987, where she worked as a guide for tourists. During her lifetime Maillart wrote almost a dozen books about her travels and bequeathed more than 16,000 photographs to the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne.

Results

Games Discipline (Sport) / Event NOC / Team Pos Medal As
1924 Summer Olympics Sailing SUI Ella Maillart
One Person Dinghy, Open (Olympic) AC