Violette Morris

Morris played football for Fémina Sports from 1917 until 1919, and for Olympique de Paris from 1920 to 1926. She also played on the France women's national team. She won gold medals at the 1921 and 1922 Women's Olympiads. In addition to her football career, she was an active participant in many other sports. She was selected for the French national water polo team even though there was no women's team at the time. She was an avid boxer, often fighting against, and defeating, men. Among the other sports she participated in were road bicycle racing, motorcycle racing, car racing, airplane racing, horseback riding, tennis, archery, diving, swimming, weightlifting, and Greco-Roman wrestling. Her most successful years were considered to be from 1921 to 1924, during her slogan was "Ce qu'un homme fait, Violette peut le faire!" (English: "What a man does, Violette can do!"). At the 1924 Women's Olympiad she won gold medals in discus and shot put.

Motor racing

Morris had her breasts removed by a mastectomy, which she claimed was in order to fit into racing cars more easily. She mainly competed in cyclecar endurance races and used a Benjamin cyclecar. She competed in the Tour de France Automobile in 1923; Bol d'Or 1922, 1923, 1926-8; Paris~Pyrenees 1922, 1923; Paris~Nice 1923, 1927; GP San Sebastian 1926; Dolomites 1934. She won the 1927 Bol d'Or 24-hour car race at the wheel of a B.N.C.

Violette Morris was born in Paris to Baron Pierre Jacques Morris, a retired French Army cavalry captain, and Élisabeth Marie Antoinette Sakakini, of Palestinian Arab origin. Morris spent her adolescence in a convent, L'Assomption de Huy. She married Cyprien Édouard Joseph Gouraud on 22 August 1914 in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. They divorced in May 1923. Morris learned how to drive during World War I and during the war she drove ambulances and worked as a courier including at the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Verdun.