James August MENAUL

Austin Menaul of the University of Chicago and the Chicago AA qualified for the 1912 Olympic team in the pentathlon and decathlon. He made the team based on winning the Central Olympic Trial in Chicago (over Avery Brundage). The event was scored on point-for-place scoring, but years later, decathlon expert Frank Zarnowski unearthed Menaul’s event scores and determined that he had set one of the very early world records in the decathlon. Menaul fought in World War I with an infantry corps in France. He returned to Chicago and began a career as a livestock buyer with Swift and Company, with whom he worked until his retirement in 1951.

Personal Bests: SP – 13.55i (44-5½i) (1912); Decathlon – 5,867 (1912).