Da Silva, whose impoverished parents were a railway worker and a domestic servant, led a remarkable life. He gained degrees in law, the arts, physical education and public relations. He spoke five languages, served in the diplomatic service and is still, 13 years after his death, a national hero in Brazil. He may not have been as popular as Pelé but he was influential. "Sport is the best way, especially among the poor, for social advancement, and to avoid violence and drugs," he once said. The "Jump for Life" youth sport institute in São Paulo, his home city, is named after him. It will open this year on Da Silva's birthday, September 29.

Da Silva is his nation's only individual athlete to have won gold at two successive Olympics. He was so popular when he won his first Olympic title in Helsinki in 1952 - breaking his own world record four times in the process - that he was asked by his coach to do a lap of honour at the end of the contest. It is said to have been the first "victory lap" at the Olympics.

It was Adhemar da Silva's gold medal winning performance at Melbourne 1956 that inspired Rosemary Mula to start her own Olympic journey ©Rosemary Mula


Da Silva had been overawed when he first competed at the Olympics, in London in 1948. He vowed then that he would learn the language of the next hosts, so he studied Finnish with books and on tapes. He heard a family speaking Finnish in Brazil, befriended them, and when he arrived in Helsinki he answered journalists' questions, posed in English, in Finnish. He even sang a song in Finnish, earning himself front-page coverage in the local newspapers. Da Silva was even more of a hero back home in Brazil after becoming the nation's first Olympic champion in track and field.

If Da Silva and Einarsson have left their mark on Olympic history, so, too, has one of the spectators who was watching them from the seats alongside the pit in Melbourne. That triple jump competition inspired Rosemary Mula when she was 15-years-old. It gave her an Olympic dream. More than half-a-century later she is still living the dream.

This week Mula will help to launch the volunteer programme for the next Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. She will fly out as a special guest of Rio 2016 to attend the launch, advise on training, and act as a mentor for volunteers in the protocol department. She has been invited because, in the words of Sebastian Coe, figurehead of the London 2012 Games, Mula is "the most dedicated volunteer in the world".

It never would have happened but for that triple jump.

Rosemary Mula has inspired many others to go on and live their Olympic dreams
©Rosemary Mula


"I was born in Hertfordshire in England," says Mula, "but my family emigrated to Australia. I didn't want to go - I had to leave all my friends behind at Walthamstow County High School."

"A group of us from my new school in Melbourne got tickets for the athletics but when we got into the stadium we were right over the other side from the finish line. The nearest action to us was the triple jump." There were no Australians in the final and the best British jumper, Ken Wilmshurst, was never in contention. So the girls decided to cheer for the elegant, cheerful Brazilian who just happened to be the defending champion: Da Silva.

"Adhemar liked us, he could hear us cheering him, and he would come over and talk to us during the competition. He asked us if we liked sport, told us to listen to our coach and so on. Later, after he had won, he said he had to go back and thank the kids who had been supporting him. His gold medal was in a box and he let me hold it.

"It was a magical moment for me. I decided right then that I wanted to be involved in the Olympics, to march at the Opening Ceremony and to compete. I loved the idea of the Olympic spirit, and I still do. I had watched the Opening Ceremony on television, which had just come to Melbourne back then."

But the years went by and Mula forgot about athletics. "I discovered boys, went to university, got on with my life, went to Papua New Guinea to teach for 10 years. Sport went by the by. But, looking back, my Olympic dream stayed in my head and in my heart."

More than 20 years later Mula, by now married to Wilf Mula, a successful businessman and racehorse owner, had moved to Singapore to live and work as a teacher. When a trade exhibition was held in the city-state, Mula recognised one of the visitors from Brazil: Da Silva.

"I told him I had been one of the girls cheering him on at Melbourne, and he hugged me and lifted me up. His coach had died, and he said, 'You're the only person I know who saw me win that gold medal!' He gave me his card and we said we'd keep in touch - but it was a long time before I saw him again. We spent five years in Singapore, and eventually we moved back to Australia."

That Olympic dream was still there, and in the early 1990s Mula acted on it. Her teaching career - she taught adult migrants and worked for the Department of Immigration - was coming to an end. Sydney was awarded the 2000 Games in 1993, and she became one of the first to step forward as a "Pioneer Volunteer".

Sydney started the pioneer volunteer programme in 1994, and brought in professional trainers to show them what was required. This was a big improvement on what was happening for the 1996 Games in Atlanta, says Mula. "The mother of a friend of mine volunteered in Atlanta and all she had been given was a video and two uniforms in the post. She was working in field hockey and she had never even heard of the sport. Training is vital for the host city and for the volunteers if they are going to get anything out of it and contribute a positive experience for Olympic visitors." Sydney was ahead of the game in that respect.

Mula worked in the protocol department as an Olympic communicator, meeting and greeting visitors from National Olympic Committees at the airport, and leading tours around the Olympic Park. "To start with it was hard to stretch a visit to an hour," she says, "but over time it became difficult to finish a tour within four hours."

She got to know some of the Olympic executives from around the world, and one day she picked up the President of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, Carlos Nuzman, who is now head of Rio 2016. Their early conversation featured Pelé, Ayrton Senna and the tennis player Gustavo Kuerten, and turned quickly to Da Silva. Nuzman was impressed and he put the medallist and his fan in touch again. This time Da Silva and the Mulas became firm friends.

Rosemary and Wilf Mula became close friends with Adhemar da Silva ©Rosemary Mula


"When it was Games time Adhemar decided to come and stay with us in Australia. We had bought an apartment right next to the Olympic Village for an investment, and I became a protocol coordinator in the Athletes' Village.

"At the time there was a book about his life (A Hero For Us, by Tania Maria Siviero) about to be launched, and one of his sponsors told him he should stay in a hotel rather than with us, but he said 'no'. We held an Opening Ceremony party at our apartment, which looked straight to the stadium, and Adhemar said he had a gift for me. It was replicas of his 1952 and 1956 medals, in a box just like the real thing."

Mula was invited to Brazil for the official book launch but she would have to withdraw from her Paralympic volunteering to go. She was torn between going and staying, as she had been working for Sydney since 1994, but she decided to accept Da Silva's invitation.

"I was at Sydney Airport with Adhemar and I told him I had had six years of an Olympic journey I thought I would never have. He took my face in his hands and said 'Your Olympic journey is not over yet. Find a way'." He was right - and she did find a way.

A few months later, Da Silva was dead. He was a diabetic, and when he contracted pneumonia in January 2001, he would not recover. He was 73.

Mula was devastated. She was determined to do something in Da Silva's honour, which has led to a small but significant partnership between Australia and Brazil in athletics. The Mulas' involvement in setting up a scholarship inspired her to ever more efforts as a sporting volunteer. She has never competed in the Olympics but she has realised her dream of marching in the Opening Ceremony. She has barely stopped working in the Olympic Movement, always as a volunteer, in 20 years.

"When Adhemar died I said to my husband, 'We have to do something here, because this is where he won that record-breaking medal.' I was listening to the radio one morning, to a headmaster from a school in a disadvantaged area who had four of his pupils going to the World Youth Games, but they couldn't afford to pay for their uniforms. I took down the number they read out in an appeal and said we would pay. It was $400 (£241/€302).

"They asked me to come down to the school so I went along with my replica medals and with one of Adhemar's shoes. After he died his daughter, Adyel, gave me the shoes he had worn in Melbourne. I gave one to the Melbourne Olympic Museum, and kept the other. I talked to the kids about doing their best, told them I envied them because they could still fulfil an Olympic dream. One of the boys was very interested and asked if he could hold the shoe.

"Three of those four kids won a gold medal at the Youth Games, and after that we decided to set up a scholarship for the most promising athlete from that school, Westfield Sports High School in Fairfield West, near Sydney."

Rosemary Mula with former FIFA President João Havelange ©Rosemary Mula


In the first year of the arrangement the scholarship winner, John Thornell, won the Brazilian long jump title. He was the boy who had asked to hold Da Silva's shoe. Other winners of the Adhemar Da Silva Scholarship have included two world champions: Fabrice Lapierre - 2010 indoor long jump and Commonwealth Games gold medallist the same year - and Dani Samuels - women's discus 2009 and gold medallist at Glasgow 2014.

The arrangement now works both ways. A Brazilian athlete comes to live, train and compete in Australia for a while. "After about six years of our Aussie athlete going to Brazil," says Mula, "the school decided to offer a young Brazilian athlete from a disadvantaged background the chance to come to Westfields for a while. It is part of the philosophy of the Olympic spirit, of international goodwill and friendship." Da Silva's daughter, Adyel, helps to select an appropriate athlete in Brazil.

In that same year, 2002, when Thornell became an Australian champion of Brazil, Mula took her volunteering efforts to a new level in Kiribati, the remote Pacific nation that comprises 32 inhabited islands and a great many more uninhabited ones.

One of her friends, who worked in the Australian diplomatic service, was posted to Kiribati with his family and Mula visited them. She was at a dinner with the nation's President and Sports Minister, and when they talked about sport the President said to her, "Please, you must help us to take part in the Olympics." The people of Kiribati - there are only 13 letters in the local alphabet, and it is pronounced Kiribass - knew next to nothing about the International Olympic Committee  (IOC) and how to become a member.

"I helped with the paperwork," says Mula, "and they wanted me to be their team attaché." Kiribati was accepted as a member of the IOC in 2003 - the same year Mula travelled to Athens, at her own expense, to take part in a pre-Olympic meeting for Chef de Missions. She and Wilf helped the team further by paying for their uniforms, and Mula travelled with them as they prepared to make their debut in the Olympics, in the Athens Games of 2004.

Rosemary Mula realised her dream of marching in an Olympic Opening Ceremony at Athens 2004 ©Rosemary Mula


Rosemary and Wilf had bought tickets for the Opening Ceremony but Rosemary could not use hers. She was asked to march as a Kiribati team official. "I'll never forget it," she says. "I was standing there in the tunnel, my heart hammering away. This was my moment. All those years ago in Melbourne I had dreamed of this, and I remember thinking 'If you have a dream, don't let it go. Don't just sit on your backside and wait for something to happen.' It was a proud moment for me."

That was the start of a relationship that took Mula, as Kiribati's attaché, to the Olympics of Beijing 2008 and London 2012, as well as the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 and Delhi in 2010. In London she helped to set up an organisation called Friends of Kiribati, which "raised a fair bit of money, some of which helped the team's expenses for this year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow".

The Flagbearer for Kiribati in Beijing and London, as well as Delhi and Glasgow, was the heavyweight weightlifter David Katoatau. In Glasgow he won his country's first medal in any Games - and it was gold. That, too, was a big moment for Mula.

Rosemary Mula with David Katoatau, Kiribati's first ever Commonwealth Games medallist ©Rosemary Mula


She was just getting into her stride in those early years of this century. Mula attended an assembly of Oceania Olympic Committees in Palau in 2004, where she met officials from the bidding cities for the 2012 Games - London, Paris and New York. Kevan Gosper, the Australian IOC member who, coincidentally, was a relay silver medallist at the 1956 Olympics, introduced her to Sir Keith Mills from the London team, telling him, "If you want to know about volunteering, this is the lady to talk to." Mula is a frequent visitor to London, and on her next visit she was invited to talk to marketing executives from the bid team.

"The vote for 2012 was held in Singapore in 2005, and I still had strong connections from when I lived there. I went at my own expense," says Mula. "Sir Keith asked me to join the London team on the day of the vote. I thought Tony Blair and David Beckham were so, so impressive, and London deserved to win."

Four years later Mula went to the next IOC vote, again at her own expense, in Copenhagen. Her favoured city won again - Rio de Janeiro.

The words "at her own expense" crop up frequently. Although Mula is reluctant to talk about it, she estimates that she has spent far more than AUD$100,000 (£56,000/$93,000/€70,000) over the years. "My husband says 'Can't you find a cheaper passion?' but he is involved, too. People spend money on exotic holidays. We don't have any children, and this is what I do instead."

Wilf became involved when Mula's diplomat friend moved from Kiribati to Tonga. They, too, needed help and Wilf became a volunteer attaché for Tonga at the Beijing and London Olympics.

In 2007 Mula made another connection, this time with the British Virgin Islands team at the Pan-American Games in Rio, where she was a mentor for the protocol volunteers.

"I met senior officials from the British Virgin Islands, and they wanted a base for training before the London Olympics. I contacted an old school friend in Aston, Hertfordshire, and the village decided to 'adopt' the British Virgin Islands team and give them a place to stay. They could train at the track nearby in Stevenage. The villagers flew the British Virgin Islands flag from the church tower. The team wanted me to be their attaché and it was perhaps time to let Kiribati stand on their own two feet, but I did one more Games with them and my best friend from Hertfordshire, Shirley Parker, became attaché for the British Virgin Islands."

In 2010, as well as travelling to Delhi with Kiribati, Mula attended a function nearer to her home, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Sydney Olympics. She spoke to Sebastian Coe about volunteering, and what it means to her, and this was where he described Mula as "the most dedicated volunteer in the world".

Sebastian Coe described Rosemary Mula as the "the most dedicated volunteer in the world" ©Rosemary Mula


She does not like to rank the Sydney volunteers, who set the benchmark for future Games, against London's Games Makers. Both, she says, did a magnificent job. "Volunteering is so strong in both those countries - so many helpers for the scouts and guides, sports coaches, mums at schools, church groups, rotary clubs, libraries, drama groups, gardening groups, community helpers and so on and so on. Our societies would collapse without volunteers. Volunteering is an integral part of our cultures."

The Olympic projects are, she says, about far more than recruiting and training. "In Athens and Beijing it all worked out but I believe there was not an inherent culture of volunteering. Brazil could have a challenge in that respect. They will need perhaps as many as 100,000 volunteers, but will they get them in a country where volunteering is not so much part of the fabric of society as it is In other parts of the world?

"I expect them to recruit some volunteers from other parts of the world, which then presents problems with travel and accommodation. They will cope, though, and it's the biggest thrill for me to be involved. I think Adhemar would have been proud of me. I have found a way to continue my Olympic journey."

Brian Oliver, author of '"The Commonwealth Games: Extraordinary Stories Behind the Medals", and a former sports editor of The Observer, was weightlifting media manager at London 2012 and Glasgow 2014.