Lillian Copeland (née Drossin; November 24, 1904 – July 7, 1964) was an American track and field Olympic champion athlete, who excelled in discus, javelin throwing, and shot put, setting multiple world records.

[9][10] Her father died when she was young, and after her mother remarried they moved to Los Angeles, California, and changed their surnames to Drossin.

[10][5][11][12] She attended the University of Southern California, where she was a member of the Xi Chapter of Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority and joined the track & field team in 1924.

[16] One of the track & field events in which she competed, which is no longer contested, was the baseball throw, in which she was second in the nation in 1926.

"[4] Both Great Athletes in Olympic Sports (Salem Press; 2010), by Kjetil André Aamodt and Laura Flessel-Colovic, and the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame report that she set the world record six times each in shot put, javelin, and discus from 1925–32.

Once she arrived in Amsterdam, however, she only competed in the discus throw at the 1928 Olympics, where she finished second to Poland's Halina Konopacka, winning a silver medal.

[12] Returning to America, she attended and ultimately graduated from the University of Southern California Law School, and became less focused on sports for a number of years.

[17][10] She competed in her home town in the 1932 Summer Olympics after beating out Babe Didrikson to qualify, and won the gold medal in the discus with her last throw.

[15] The 27-year-old Copeland was at the time the oldest American woman to have won an Olympic gold medal in a track & field event.

[3] She accused International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage of "deliberately concealing the truth" about Hitler and Nazi Germany.

[9] She also argued that Brundage had little respect for the harmful effects of Nazi Germany's intense regime on members of the Jewish community.

Copeland raised awareness on the danger of ignoring religious and racial hatred perpetrated by Nazi Germany.

She wanted people to know that the racial discrimination encouraged by members of Nazi Germany should not be overlooked, even in sports.

[10][1][15][25] She died on July 7, 1964, in Los Angeles, at 59 years of age at Sunset Hospital after a lengthy illness.