Adolf Schmal

Who was Adolf Schmal?

Felix Adolf Schmal was an Austrian fencer and racing cyclist. He was born in Dortmund and died in Salzburg. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens.

Schmal competed in the 333 metres, 10 kilometres, 100 kilometres, and 12 hours races in cycling. His best result was in the 12 hours race, where he covered 314.997 kilometres in the time allotted to outdistance the only other finisher by a single lap of the track. Schmal also did well in the 333 metres and the 10 kilometres, finishing third in each race. He originally tied with Stamatios Nikolopoulos in the shorter race, both placing second with a time of 26.0 seconds. This led to a race-off between the two, which Schmal lost by 1.2 seconds as he finished in 26.6 seconds. He was among the seven cyclists that did not finish the 100 kilometres.

Schmal also competed in the sabre event in the fencing tournament. He did not do well, defeating only Georgios Iatridis while losing to Ioannis Georgiadis, Telemachos Karakalos, and Holger Nielsen to place fourth out of five.

Schmal's son, Adolf Schmal, Jr., competed at the 1912 Summer Olympics.