Swimmer, Olympic champion
Paul Neumann was born in Vienna, the son of a renowed physician. He achieved his first sportive victory by winning Austria’s National River Swimming Championship in 1892.
Neumann was a member of the Austrian Olympic swimming team at the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. He won the gold medal in the 500 meter free style competition, one of the only two Austrians to win a medal at those games.
He immigrated to the USA where he became a member of the sport team of the medical school of the University of Chicago. He continued his sportive career in the USA as a member of Chicago Athletic Association setting world records in the Two, Three, Four, and Five-Mile swimming events in 1897 and winning both the American and Canadian National Freestyle Swimming Championships. In 1897 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the water polo team.