James Austin Menaul (March 26, 1888 – October 17, 1975) was an American athlete who came fifth in the 1912 Olympic pentathlon.

Biography Menaul was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where his father, also named James Austin Menaul (1843–1897), was principal of Menaul School.Zarnowski 1996 pp.31–33 After his father's death his mother, née Sara M. Foresman, moved the family to Chicago, where Menaul attended Englewood High School and in 1908 enrolled in the University of Chicago.Zarnowski 1996 pp.33–35 Coached by Amos Alonzo Stagg, Menaul represented the Chicago Maroons in track and field and college football (1909 and 1910).Zarnowski 1996 pp.38–40 In 1909 he moved into the Delta Kappa Epsilon frat house.Zarnowski 1996 p.39 He was 1911 Big Ten champion in shot put, despite being relatively small.Zarnowski 1996 pp.40–41 He also competed in the high jump and sprint hurdles. He was lead runner on the 4 × 440 yards relay teams that won the 1910–11–12 Drake Relays and the 1911 Penn Relays, the last in 3:21.8, 1.2 s outside the world record.Zarnowski 1996 pp.41–42, 57

In 1912 Menaul competed in the Central regional U.S. trials for the Stockholm Olympics.Zarnowski 1996 pp.43–46 Stagg complained that the trials interfered with the intervarsity schedule.Zarnowski 1996 p.43 On 16 May he finished second (of two) in the pentathlon, behind Avery Brundage;Zarnowski 1996 p.44–45 in the decathlon on 22–23 May he finished first, ahead of Brundage and two others.Zarnowski 1996 pp.45–46 The Amateur Athletic Union scored the results by sum-of-placings rather than the IAAF's newly devised scoring tables; Menaul's decathlon performance would have been a world record using the tables, though this was not realized until 1987.Zarnowski 1996 pp.46–47, 58; Zarnowski 2005, p.242;

At the Olympic Games, Menaul narrowly missed out on a medal in the pentathlon: he finished fifth on 30 points, one point behind third and fourth places, which were promoted to second and third when winner Jim Thorpe was disqualified (and kept their medals when he was reinstated in 1982).Zarnowski 1996 pp.49–50 Menaul had injured his shoulder practicing for the javelin throw, a discipline not part of the Big Ten program, and by far his worst score at the Olympics.Zarnowski 1996 pp.43, 49 Lingering effects of the injury prompted him to withdraw from the Olympic decathlon.Zarnowski 1996 pp.49, 50

+Track and field results of J. Austin Menaud Event Competition Date Placing Performance Refs Shot put Big Ten outdoors 1909 1st Griffith 1929, p.25 Shot put Big Ten indoors 1911 1st Griffith 1929, p.27 Pentathlon Central U.S. Olympic Trials 1912 2nd Decathlon Central U.S. Olympic Trials 1912 1st 7414.555 (1912 tables) / 5867 (1984 tables) 100m 11.4 — LJ — SP — HJ — 400m 53.8 — 110mH 16.6 — DT — PV — JT — 1500m 4:37.2 Pentathlon Olympic Games 1912 5th

After graduation, Menaul enlisted and fought in World War I.Zarnowski 1996 p.51 Later he worked for publishers Scott Foresman (founded by his mother's brother) and then as a livestock buyer for Swift and Company.Zarnowski 1996 p.52 He married Della Patterson in 1922 and had four children, retiring in 1951 and moving to Menlo Park, California, where he died in 1975.

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