Adhemar da Silva on his way to Olympic triple jump gold in 1952 (© Getty Images)
It was 70 years ago today, on 16 March 1955, that Adhemar Ferreira da Silva became the first man to triple jump beyond 16.50m.
According to Sports Illustrated, “the lithe, long-legged Brazilian, known to all in his homeland as Kangaroo,” was “probably the finest natural hop-step-and-jumper ever born.”
The balletic Brazilian, who “gracefully skimmed through” the three phases of his event “displaying the poise and finesse of a samba dancer,” to quote the eloquent L’Equipe athletics writer Alain Billouin, was the standout performer of his day.
In all, in five world record steps from 1950 to the Pan American Games in the thin air of Mexico City this day in 1955, Da Silva took the frontier of the men’s triple jump from 16.00m to 16.56m.
He was, however, much more than a trailblazing hop, step and jump merchant. He was also an actor, diplomat, linguist, musician, sculptor and singer.
Adhemar da Silva on his way to Olympic triple jump gold in 1952 (© Getty Images)
Born into poverty as the son of a railroad worker in Sao Paulo, Da Silva became one of the great polymaths of track and field who gained renown beyond the athletics arena.
He was already the first South American athlete to claim two Olympic titles, with victories in Helsinki in 1952 and Melbourne in 1956, when he struck major gold as a film star, playing the role of Death in Black Orpheus in 1959.
French filmmaker Marcel Camus’ celebrated adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus – set in a Rio de Janeiro favela during the annual Carnaval festivities – won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, an honour bestowed upon such all-time classics as The Third Man, The Go Between, Pulp Fiction and Brief Encounter.
It also won the 1960 Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film, and was the favourite film of the anthropologist Ann Dunham, as noted by her son, the former US President Barack Obama, in his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father.
It possibly also made an impression on Guiseppe Gentile. The Italian – who set fleeting world records of 17.10m and 17.22m in the qualifying round of the Olympic triple jump in Mexico City in 1968, going on to take bronze in the final – starred alongside the legendary operatic soprano Maria Callas as the mythical Greek hero Jason in the 1969 film Medea.
Da Silva was preparing for the defence of his Olympic title in Rome in 1960 and studying for a degree in physical education when he was chosen for his role because of his athletic physique.
He gained his first degree as a sculptor, in fine arts, and secured others in law and public relations.
He was also a diplomat, serving as Brazil’s cultural attache to Nigeria from 1964 to 1967, and a polyglot, fluent in Portuguese, English, Finnish, French, Japanese, Italian, German and Spanish, and conversant in Czech and Icelandic.
It was probably because of his proficiency as a linguist that Da Silva, the Renaissance Man of track and field, pioneered the phenomenon of the lap of honour.
Such was his popularity among the Finnish public during his time at the Helsinki Olympic Games in 1952, he felt obliged to perform a circuit of the arena to show his gratitude.
Having learned the language from a Finnish family living in Sao Paulo, in order to enhance his Olympic experience in Scandinavia, he endeared himself to the host nation by answering in Finnish when interviewers posed questions to him in English.
‘The man who invented the Olympic lap of honour’, as Da Silva became known, also distinguished himself in Helsinki with two world records, 16.12m and 16.22m, en route to a title he retained after a titanic battle with the unheralded Icelander Vilhjamur Einarsson in Melbourne in 1956.
The spike shoe (right foot) worn by Da Silva in the Melbourne 1956 Olympic final was presented to the Museum of World Athletics in 2019 by Rosemary Mula. The shoe is on permanent display in the museum’s online 3D platform.
Two Olympic golds and five world records
Almost a quarter of a century after his death, at the age of 73 in 2001, he remains the only South American track and field athlete to have won two Olympic gold medals in an individual event.
In his youth, Da Silva dreamed of musical fame, winning amateur radio contests as a singer and guitar player.
In addition to eulogising the Brazilian Renaissance Man as the finest natural triple jumping talent of all time, George de Carvalho noted in a 1959 Sports Illustrated profile: “He’s also a nice, easy-going guy, who always totes his guitar to track meets. He sings in 10 languages – anything from sambas to Schubert – and enlivens post-meet parties with all-night song sessions.”
Da Silva also dreamed of being a professional footballer and, though a trial with Sao Paulo FC proved unsuccessful, his athleticism impressed the club’s German-born track and field coach, Dietrich Gerner.
Dieter Gerner (left) with Adhemar Ferreira da Silva
“I tried him in the 100m dash,” Gerner recalled. “Then I tried him in the high jump and the long jump and at distance running. After two years, I’d just about lost hope, but then he tried the hop, step and jump. He went 11.40m first time. I couldn’t believe it.”
That was in 1947. Just a year later, Da Silva made the first of four Olympic appearances, finishing eighth in the final in London with 14.49m.
The first of his five world records was achieved in 1950. Jumping in the Tiete Stadium of his native Sao Paulo, he equalled the 16.00m set by Japan’s Naoto Tajima at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. A year later, he eclipsed the ancient mark with 16.01m in Rio.
In 2018, Da Silva was among the inaugural 12 recipients of the World Athletics Heritage Plaque. His plaque sits on permanent public display in the park where the Tiete Stadium, São Paulo, used to stand.
While in 2019, Dietrich Gerner was similarly honoured with a World Athletics Heritage Plaque, which today sits on public display in the Estádio Cícero Pompeu de Toledo, Sao Paulo, home to São Paulo FC, the football club he used to manage.
Under Gerner’s guidance, Da Silva perfected his superbly balanced technique, maintaining his rhythm through the three phases with a smoothness never before witnessed in the triple jump.
His farthest hop step and jump, his fifth world record, came in the final round of the Pan American Games at the Estadio Olimpico Universitario in Mexico City 70 years ago, 16 March 1955.
It was not quite as pronounced as Bob Beamon’s 45cm advancement of the men’s long jump world record in the same arena in 1968 but a quantum collective leap nonetheless.
With a hop of 6.28m, a step of 4.95m and a jump of 5.33m, the Brazilian Kangaroo bounded out to 16.56m – an improvement of 33cm on Leonid Shcherbakov’s previous global mark.
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics Heritage
