Two-time Olympic champion and shepherd are included in the book of heroes of the homeland

The names of sportsman Adhemar Ferreira da Silva and human rights activist pastor Jaime Nelson Wright were included in the Book of Heroes and Heroines of the Fatherland, which is in the Pantheon of the Fatherland and Freedom, in Brasília. The laws were sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this Thursday (11) and published in the Official Gazette. The Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) classifies Adhemar Ferreira da Silva as one of the greatest names in the history of Brazilian sport. The athlete competed in four editions of the Olympic Games and won the gold medal in Helsinki, in 1952, and in Melbourne, in 1956, becoming Brazil’s first two-time Olympic champion. “Throughout his career, Adhemar also broke the triple jump world record five times and was a three-time champion of the Pan American Games. In addition to the expressive results, the Brazilian created a celebration that has become traditional in the games. In Helsinki 1952, when celebrating gold, he took the first Olympic lap in history in a stadium.” Adhemar started in the sport by chance, at the age of 18. He competed for São Paulo and Vasco, always coached by Dietrich Gerner. Graduated in law, fine arts, public relations and physical education, spoke several languages, was cultural attaché of Brazil in Nigeria and columnist for the newspaper Ultima Hora. He also participated in the film Orfeu Negro, winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Oscar for foreign film in 1959. Adhemar died in 2001. The Presbyterian pastor Jaime Nelson Wright is described by the website Memórias da Ditadura as a great combatant of the military dictatorship. The son of American missionaries, he studied theology and did postgraduate work at Princeton University, in the United States. He returned to Brazil and, in 1968, took over the direction of the Presbyterian Mission of Central Brazil, in São Paulo. In 1973, his brother Paulo Stuart Wright disappeared and was murdered by repression agencies of the military regime. The pastor published 1.8 million copies of the ecumenical edition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He has written articles denouncing human rights violations in Brazil. He founded, together with Jan Rocha and Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh, the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in the Countries of the Southern Cone. In 1975, he participated in the cult in memory of Vladimir Herzog, with Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns and Rabbi Henry Sobel. From 1979, he worked for the cause of human rights in the Archdiocese of São Paulo and coordinated the Brasil: Nunca Mais project, which resulted in the publication of an inventory of torture in Brazil. He died in 1999 in Vitória, victim of a heart attack.

Agência Brasil