There I was – 15 years old, living in country England, at a very sports-orientated grammar school where I was a star track athlete, and I had a great circle of friends. I was really happy.
Then, out of the blue, my parents told me we were moving to Australia.
Nowadays, in England, that would be seen as exotic, but then it was six weeks on a ship, you were going to the ends of the earth and you’d never come back. I was devastated.
We arrived in Melbourne in September 1956, two months before the Olympics. I was miserable and my father knew it. Somehow he got me a ticket to the Olympic stadium for track and field. That ticket changed my life.
I remember sitting in the stands with other school kids, two rows from the fence. We were watching the triple jump final. The favourite was the Soviet guy. There was no Brit, no Australian, so our group decided to cheer for the defending champion from Brazil, Adhemar Ferreira da Silva, even though he was considered too old to win another gold medal.
He’d come from a working-class family, battled his way into competitive athletics, and seemed such a nice man. He’d trot over to the fence between jumps and talk to us kids. He asked if any of us were into track and field, told us to listen to our coach, do our homework, and we hung on his every word.
When he went out to compete, we screamed for him. Then he put his fingers to his lips, and we were silent. That day, he pulled out the biggest jump of the competition. We all stood up. We were absolutely in tears because this was our hero. And after he received his gold medal, he came over to thank us and passed the medal around.
As I held his medal, my loneliness and depression lifted. I thought, “This is what I want to do – I’m going to be an Olympian and march in an opening ceremony.” That became my dream. I went back to school with a new enthusiasm. I worked hard and I did well, but I didn’t do well enough to get to the Olympics. And while I never lost my enthusiasm for track and field or for the Games, I thought that was the end of my Olympic dream, and life moved on.
I became a teacher. I lived and worked in Papua New Guinea, returned to Sydney and met my future husband, Wilfred. We moved to Singapore, and while there we went to a South American exhibition. As I arrived, I saw a very tall man standing in the doorway. I looked and looked again…
“Excuse me,” I said, “are you Adhemar Ferreira da Silva?”
He was as excited as I was. He remembered our little kid gang screaming and shouting for him. He said it had meant the world to him, so far from home. We had dinner together, but I returned to Australia and we lost contact again.
The Olympics still had a special place in my heart. I loved the sport, but also the way it brought the world together. So, in 1993, when Juan Antonio Samaranch said, “the winner is Sydney”, I thought, at last I can be part of the Olympics. I volunteered in a range of capacities, and along the way, I met the President of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and told him my story from the Melbourne Games. I said, “I don’t even know if Adhemar is still alive.”
He said, “Absolutely he is, and he is still our hero – the only Brazilian to win two gold medals successively.” He put me in touch with him. When Adhemar came to Sydney he stayed with Wilfred and me. We got to spend time together, get to know each other, and we accompanied him to some special events – I’ll never forget being in the stadium when Cathy Freeman won gold in the 400 metres.
When I took him to the airport, I said, “Adhemar, I think my Olympic journey is over now.” I’d spent seven incredible years working as a volunteer and I felt satisfied. But he took my face in his hands and looked at me and said, “Rosemary, your Olympic journey is not over. It is only beginning.” And he insisted I find a way to meet him in Athens in 2004. As we parted I promised I would try.
Two months later our phone rang in the middle of the night. Wilfred answered, and when he put the phone down, he wrapped his arms around me and told me that Adhemar had died of a heart attack. Brazil gave him a state funeral. He was a hero and such a good man. And he’d been right – my Olympic journey was not over. Two years later, a friend in the diplomatic service introduced me to the President of Kiribati, who wanted his small island nation to field a team at the 2000 Olympics but couldn’t negotiate the red tape. He knew I’d been involved with the Sydney Olympics and asked if I could help Kiribati get a team to Athens is 2004.
So I became the attaché to the Kiribati team. My diplomat friend, Colin, and I pulled together the paperwork and their application was accepted. I organised uniforms and travel for them, and I flew to Athens at my own expense. I can’t tell you how excited they were when they stepped into the Olympic Village, and how excited I was to be in Greece, where the Games were born.
On the night of the Opening Ceremony I went to the village to check the team was ready, their uniforms pressed and they had their passes. When I arrived, the Chef de Mission called me over and said, “Rosemary, here’s your marching ticket.”
“My what?”
“You’re part of our team. Don’t you want to march with us in the Opening Ceremony?”
So there I was, an hour later, standing in the tunnel with the Kiribati team, waiting to step into the arena. I had tears in my eyes. I imagined that Adhemar was sitting on one shoulder and my father on the other, and I thought, your little girl is finally marching into that stadium as part of a team. My husband was up in the stands, and he said, “Rosemary, you didn’t march, you floated.”
I went on to help Tonga prepare for – and during – the Olympics, and volunteered at Beijing and London. In 2016 in Rio de Janeiro I helped train volunteers in the Olympic Athletes Village. My husband and I also set up a scholarship in Adhemar’s memory at Westfields Sports High School, in western Sydney. Every year we’ve sponsored one young athlete. Dani Samuels Stevens, the Olympic discus thrower, was one. Fabrice Lapierre, the world indoor long jump champion, was another. This year a young boy from Westfields – one of six kids and a refugee from Sierra Leone – has been chosen for the Australian team for the Youth World Games.
Wilfred and I don’t have children, but years ago we had a Rotary Youth Exchange student from Brazil. We got to know him and his family well, and eventually sponsored him to come to Australia. So, we’re the Australian grandparents to his daughters, Stella and Victoria, who are almost as crazy about the Olympic Games as I am.
I visit a lot of schools, and tell kids: “If you have a dream to be a singer, an artist, writer or actor, don’t let any adult tell you that you can’t do it. It won’t happen if you sit on your bottom, and it may not happen in the way you think it will, but it can happen, and I’m the proof.”
