Lillian Copeland was an American track and field Olympic champion athlete, who excelled in discus, javelin throwing, and shot put, setting multiple world records. She has been called "the most successful female discus thrower in U.S. history". She also held multiple titles in shot put and javelin throwing. She won a silver medal in discus at the 1928 Summer Olympics, a gold medal in discus at the 1932 Summer Olympics, and gold medals in discus, javelin, and shot put at the 1935 Maccabiah Games in Mandatory Palestine.
Leslie Roy Mills is a retired New Zealand track and field athlete and politician. He represented New Zealand at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games over two decades, competing in the shot put and discus throw. He won a total of five medals at the Commonwealth Games including gold in the discus at the 1966 Games.
John Carl Godina is an American shot putter, whose record includes three World Championship wins and two Olympic medals. He also competes in discus. Godina was born in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
David Mark Berger was an American and Israeli Olympic weightlifter, and one of the 11 Israeli Olympians taken hostage and killed by the Palestinian group Black September during the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Born and raised in the United States, Berger was a lawyer by education and had emigrated to Israel after taking part in the 1969 Maccabiah Games, where he won a gold medal.
Bruce Wilhelm is a former weightlifter and strongman from the United States. He is a two-time winner of the World's Strongest Man competition in 1977 and 1978 and the author of numerous strength-related articles and books. He was a member of the executive board of the United States Olympic Committee. He was also on the Athletes Advisory Council for 8 years as well as the Substance and Drug Abuse Committee, the Sports Medicine Committee, and the Games Preparation Committee.
Earlene Brown was an American athlete notable for her careers in track and field and roller games. She competed at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics in the shot put and discus throw and won a bronze medal in the shot put in 1960; she finished fourth in the discus in 1956.
Isaac "Ike" Berger was an American weightlifter, in the featherweight division, who competed for the United States at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won one gold and two silver medals. He held eight world records, and won the United States national title eight times. In the highest level international competition, he was world featherweight champion in 1958 and 1961, and was the runner-up for that title in 1957, 1959, and 1963.
Lemuel Clarence "Bud" Houser was an American field athlete. He won Olympic gold medals in the discus throw in 1924 and 1928 and in the shot put in 1924.
Kenneth Flax is a retired American Olympic hammer thrower, whose personal best throw is 80.02 metres, achieved in May 1988 in Modesto.
The 6th Maccabiah Games were held in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1961, with 1,100 athletes from 27 countries competing in 18 sports. The Games were officially opened in an Opening Ceremony on August 29, 1961, in Ramat Gan Stadium by Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi before a crowd of 30,000. The closing ceremony took place on September 5, 1961, at the stadium before a crowd of 40,000, with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion telling the crowd that he hoped that in the future athletes from North Africa, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union would also compete. The United States won 58 gold medals, Israel won 28 gold medals, and South Africa was third with 11 gold medals. American sportscaster Mel Allen narrated a film about the 1961 Games.
Twenty-one countries sent 980 athletes to compete in the 1957 5th Maccabiah Games, an international Jewish athletics competition similar to the Olympics. The opening ceremony on September 15, 1957, was held in Ramat Gan Stadium, with athletes parading before Israeli President Yitzhak Ben Zvi.
Eight hundred ninety athletes representing 23 countries competed in the 1953 4th Maccabiah Games, held September 20 to 29, in 18 branches of sports.
Frank Isaac Spellman was an American machinist and photographer and a middleweight Olympic champion weightlifter. He won a gold medal at the 1948 Olympics, and a bronze medal and a silver medal at the World Championships in 1946–47. He also won a gold medal at the 1950 Maccabiah Games.
Allan "Al" Dean Feuerbach is a former American track and field athlete. He competed in the shot put at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics and finished in fifth and fourth place, respectively. He missed the 1980 Games due to the boycott by the United States. He did however receive one of 461 Congressional Gold Medals created especially for the spurned athletes.
Nickolaus "Mickey" Hirschl was an Austrian Olympic-medal-winning wrestler. He was also a European heavyweight wrestling champion, and for 10 years held the title of Austrian heavyweight wrestling champion. He was also an Austrian shot put and discus junior champion, Austrian heavyweight weightlifting junior champion, and for seven years the Austrian pentathlon champion.
Gary Leslie Hooper, MBE is an Australian Paralympic competitor. He won seven medals at three Paralympics from 1960 to 1968.
Andrew Bloom is an American former Olympic shot putter, two-time national indoor shot put champion, World University Games shot put champion, and NCAA champion in both discus and shot put.
Jon Frederic Cole was a discus thrower,powerlifter, Olympic weightlifter and strongman from the United States. He competed in powerlifting just prior to the formation of the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF). Having set world records in the squat, deadlift and Total during his career, he was multiple times AAU US National Powerlifting Champion as well as an outstanding Olympic weightlifter, discus thrower and shot-putter. Being the "premier strongman" of the early 1970s for his overall excellence in powerlifting, Olympic lifting and strength-based track and field, Cole was at one time known as the "strongest man in the world" for holding the greatest combined powerlifting/weightlifting super total of all time. Jon Cole was not only officially the first man in history to total 2200 lbs, he also became the first man to squat over 900 lbs as well as the first to total 2300 lbs in competition on October 28, 1972. Today, he is enjoying legendary status in the powerlifting scene and is widely considered to be one of the all-time greatest powerlifters in the history of the sport. His lifts, which are considered as raw by today's standards, are still mostly unequaled in his weight class: He still holds the all-time greatest raw (unequipped) powerlifting totals in the 242 and the 308-pound division. While past his prime as a lifter, he competed in the first annual World's Strongest Man competition in 1977, where he finished in 6th place.
David Lorne Steen is a Canadian former track and field athlete who specialised in the shot put. He was a two-time gold medallist in the event at the Commonwealth Games in 1966 and 1970, breaking games records both times. He had won the bronze medal at the 1962 event. His personal record was 19.21 m, set in 1970.
Track and field athletics is one of several sports contested at the quadrennial Maccabiah Games competition. It has been a Maccabiah Games sport since the inaugural edition of the event in 1932.
