FERREIRA DA SILVA, ADHEMAR

born Sept. 27, 1927, So Paulo, Brazil Brazilian athlete, winner of two Olympic gold medals and five world records in the triple jump. He was the first Brazilian to hold a world record in any event and was among the greatest South American athletes in history. Though his speed and long-jumping ability were not extraordinary, Ferreira da Silva became an exceptional triple jumper. He jumped 42 feet 13.05 m (9.84 inches) in his first meet, in 1947; three years later, trained by German coach Dietrich Gerner, he soared 16 m (52 feet 56 inches) to break a 14-year-old world record. He improved on that record in the national meet at Rio de Janiero the next year. He made his first Olympic Games appearance in 1948 in London, finishing 11th in the triple jump, and returned for the 1952 Games in Helsinki. In the finals of those Olympics he set two world triple-jump records in less than two hours, winning the gold medal. A Soviet triple jumper, Leonid Sherbakov, finished second in that Olympics, then set a world record 0.01 m (0.4 inch) longer than Ferreira da Silva's best in 1953. In 1955, in his 100th competition, Ferreira da Silva erased Sherbakov's record with a 16.56-metre (54 foot 3.96 inch) leap, the longest of his career. The next year he won his second gold medal for the triple jump in the 1956 Olympics at Melbourne. He appeared in the 1959 Brazilian film Black Orpheus and made his final Olympic appearance in Rome in 1960, finishing 14th.