Unless I am very much mistaken, I think this was the dynamic creature - Cooly by name - which went through all the athletic paces at the European Athletics Championships in this same city two years ago, showing above average ability, certainly for a cow, at the 110 metre hurdles, high jump and, of course, pole vault.

On this occasion Cooly was helping promote the first event of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Diamond League meeting in Zurich, the women’s pole vault - featuring, among others, Olympic gold and silver medallists Ekaterini Stefanidi and Sandi Morris.

Competition took place in the city’s main station a day ahead of the main programme, with a thoroughly absorbed crowd of around 2,000 enjoying the proceedings.

Inside the prodigious Cooly, it is rumoured, certainly in recent years, is a sweaty decathlete of more than average ability.

Speculation has turned this mascot, which emerged in 2009 at the World Ice Hockey Championships in the Swiss capital Bern, into a sporting version of The Stig, the mystery driver in the BBC’s Top Gear programme.

Whatever, whoever, wherever, Cooly works - and helps generate interest in a sport which is still pondering on the conundrum of its experiences at Rio 2016, where a series of seismic performances including three world records which reverberated around the world took place within a stadium that was often half full, and sometimes less than that.

To be present at the Olympic Stadium last month, and to be able to pick out individual voices during Olympic medal ceremonies towards the end of the sessions, was strange and discomfiting. 

As the Rio Olympics drew to a close, the general view on the Paralympics which would follow - and which get underway in less than a week - was that it was going to be a pretty unfortunate contrast to the soaring interest seen and heard day after day at the London 2012 Paralympics.

I was lucky enough to witness the original Super Saturday at the London Olympics, but even that evening did not match the intensity of crowd participation a month later as home sprinter Jonnie Peacock had his name chanted with ceaseless fervour before generating an ear-buzzing noise as he won the T44 100m final.

It was astonishing - for the athletes involved, and certainly for the media involved. Perhaps not so much so for the crowd, for many of whom this must have been a unique experience.

Looking back on the whole London 2012 experience, it was surely the Paralympics which was the event’s crowning glory. The Olympic success was a given in a nation that has always supported its sportsmen and women in that arena; but the level of interest generated and manifested in the Paralympics was extraordinary; historic.

Fast forward four years - to the set expressions of the International Paralympic Committee’s President Sir Philip Craven and its chief executive Xavier Gonzalez less than a fortnight ago in Rio as they tried to put the best possible face on an announcement that vital travel grants enabling teams to come to the Paralympics had still not been paid, and that in the light of economic vicissitudes the Deodoro complex would have effectively to be shut down as a public space, other than for direct visits to stadiums on the site.

There were 2.4 million tickets for sale at the Paralympics, Gonzalez said. At that point around 300,000 had been sold. With 19 days remaining until the Opening Ceremony, the target, Gonzalez insisted, was ticket sales of two million. 

It sounded a forlorn ambition. But according to the latest figures issued by the official Rio Paralympics site, ticket sales have passed the million mark, with last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday reportedly seeing sales of 50,000, 100,000 and 130,000 respectively.

Given the previous levels of interest, this is certainly a dramatic shift upwards. It remains to be seen whether there will be a repeat of the Olympic experience, however, when despite assurances that more than 80 per cent of tickets had been sold, many events took place in front of swathes of empty plastic seats.

Two elements which have certainly helped to boost the figures in the space of the last two weeks have been an initiative being organised by Rio 2016 education programme Transforma, which is working in partnership with the Rio de Janeiro State Government to provide 33,000 tickets for local teenagers to experience the Paralympics.

The site adds: “Rio 2016 has also endorsed, along with the International Paralympic Committee, an international crowd-funding initiative that aims to provide 10,000 Paralympic Games tickets for Brazilian children.

"The #FillTheSeats campaign, which has been supported by British band Coldplay and a host of top athletes, raised $20,000 (£15,000/€18,000) in one week."

The campaign, which can be reached here, has now raised more than $40,000 (£30,000/€35,000) in eight days, with a target total of $300,000 (£226,000/€269,000).

There have been some voices questioning the long-term consequences of, effectively, paying for others to fill stadia.

But the challenge currently facing the Rio Paralympics is unique - because, as Craven himself said, "never before in the 56 year history of the Paralympic Games have we faced circumstances like this". 

Any means that can help prevent the athletes who have been working for the last four years perform in front of empty houses has to be embraced right now.

Whether it’s pole vaulting cows, or Coldplay-endorsed fundraising schemes, anything that gets people to sit and watch live sport is to be applauded.

What the Rio organisers need to focus on now, however, is to make sure the athletes receive the travel grants they have been promised to enable them to arrive in the first place.

Nearly two weeks ago Craven, grimly, said such payments needed to be made "pronto". 

Promises have been made. Time runs. 

It would be grim irony indeed if Paralympic arenas turn out to be at least reasonably well-filled, only for there to be a lack of performers when the show begins.