His narrow victory, in the second-round run-off against the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, was the closest margin of victory in an election since Brazil reverted to democracy in the late 1980s. The result, 50.9 per cent for Lula and 49.1 per cent for Bolsonaro, has been hailed as one of the greatest political comebacks in history and around the world was greeted enthusiastically.

As news of Lula's victory spread, a sea of red - the colour of his Workers' Party - massed on São Paulo's main street, Paulista Avenue, eager for a glimpse of the returning President-elect.

"It wasn't Lula against Bolsonaro; it was a campaign of democracy against barbarity," Lula told the crowds.

By the time he stepped down as President in 2010, Lula had an approval rating of 80 per cent. Barack Obama had once hailed him as "the most popular president on Earth".

The United States President was talking from personal experience having faced him as a rival when Rio de Janeiro and Chicago were both bidding to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Lula had put several years of strategy, planning, and arduous effort into Rio's campaign even before Obama was elected as America's first black President less than a year before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session met to choose the host city at Copenhagen in 2009.

Obama-mania was at its height by the time the vote came round, and the stardust that he seemed to sprinkle wherever he went was widely assumed to have given Chicago the X-factor. Obama was unsure about attending the Session but was convinced to go at the last moment after two senior United States Olympic Committee officials visited him in the Oval Office.

"Can we win this," Obama asked them. 

"Sir, if you come to Copenhagen, I guarantee we will win," one of them replied.

Obama’s cavalcade swept across the Atlantic, bringing the Danish capital to a standstill as streets to the Bella Center, where the Session was taking place, were closed off and IOC members were forced to leave their five-star hotel at 6am on the day of the vote to ensure they would arrive on time. It was hardly a strategy designed to curry favour with the very electorate he was trying to appeal to.

In contrast to Obama, Lula had made it clear early on he would attend the IOC Session and promote his country’s candidate. He had been taking notes on how other countries had increased their chances of winning and, unlike Obama, had built up personal relationships with many IOC members.  

He noted then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts in 2005, for example, when he travelled to Singapore, made a compelling case for London, and came home with the 2012 Olympics. In 2007, President Vladimir Putin showed up before the IOC in Guatemala to lobby for Russia's bid to host the host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Whenever I interviewed Lula on the campaign trail, he was passionate about his dream of using the Olympics to help boost Brazil, something that shone through in his final presentation to the IOC members in Copenhagen.

He brushed aside concerns of violence and crime in Rio, and claimed that the Olympics would help build Brazil, and especially the city of Rio de Janeiro, by providing jobs for the poor, integrating civil society, and building a spirit of peace and cooperation through sport - a message that the IOC always loves to hear.

Most important, though, was Lula's argument that Brazil deserved and needed the Olympics. Richer countries had had their turn, Lula said, and now it was Brazil's chance. Brazil ranked 10th among the world's wealthiest countries, but was the only one of them never to have hosted the Olympics. It would be the first South American country to do so.

The IOC lapped it up, delivered an astonishing snub to President Obama by voting Chicago out in the first round and then awarded Rio the Olympics ahead of its two other rivals, Tokyo and Madrid. With Brazil having already been awarded the 2014 FIFA World Cup, it was a remarkable double for an emerging country. Hosting sport's two mega events was expected to act like twin turbo boosters and propel Brazil into the world's top five economies.

Rio's supporters broke out into chants of "Lula, Lula" as the Brazilian President was introduced at the city's victory press conference.

Crowds watching a live broadcast on Rio’s famous Copacabana Beach exploded into a delirious uproar. Ticker tape swirled, a giant banner reading "Rio Loves You" was unfurled, and a samba club took to the stage. "This is the moment for Brazil a dream in an envelope," TV Globo called it.

"Rio is ready. Give us the chance and you will not regret it," Lula had told the IOC.

Even before Rio 2016 started, both Lula and the IOC were already regretting it.

Olympic preparations had been marked by delays, the Rio State Government was broke and a Zika epidemic was leading to the withdrawal of athletes. It was, some experts claimed, the worst Olympics in history, certainly the worst of the 16 I have attended.

The lead-up to the Olympics also saw a growing corruption scandal that was beginning to dominate Brazilian society. Dilma Rousseff, the successor Lula chose as President, was suspended just before the Olympics were due to begin for an impeachment trial. Lula himself was also beginning to be mentioned as being involved and, in 2017, was convicted on charges of money laundering and corruption in a controversial trial and sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison.

After an unsuccessful appeal, Lula was arrested in April 2018 and spent 580 days in jail. In November 2019, the Supreme Federal Court ruled that incarcerations with pending appeals were unlawful and Lula was released from prison as a result. In March 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that all of Lula's convictions must be nullified, because he was tried by a court that did not have proper authority over his case. It restored his political rights, paving the way for his stunning comeback victory over Bolsonaro.

Lula may have managed to clear himself of being involved in corruption, but the allegation remains firmly stuck to the Rio 2016 bid he was such a high-profile supporter of. It turned out that it had not been a "dream" in that envelope TV Globo had spoken about, but something else, mainly wads of dollars it appeared.

Last year, Rio 2016 President Carlos Nuzman was sentenced by a Rio court to 30 years and 11 months in prison after being found guilty of corruption, criminal organisation, money laundering and tax evasion. Nuzman, who remains free on bail while he appeals against the decision, has always denied the charges. 

Judge Marcelo Bretas also sentenced to jail the former Rio Governor Sergio Cabral, the businessman Arthur Soares and Leonardo Gryner, who had been the Rio 2016 director general of operations. Investigators alleged that all three and Nuzman coordinated to bribe the former President of the International Association of Athletics Federations, Lamine Diack, as well as his son Papa Massata Diack for votes.

Cabral, who was Governor of Rio between 2003 and 2010, admitted he had paid about $2 million (£1.75 million/€2.1 million) in exchange for up to nine votes at the IOC Session in Copenhagen. 

The investigation in Brazil had begun in 2017 after the French newspaper Le Monde reported that members of the IOC had been bribed three days before the event in Copenhagen.

Besides Diack, who died last December, among the IOC members to have been implicated in the scandal were Ukraine’s Sergey Bubka, Namibia's Frankie Fredericks and Russia’s Alexander Popov.

"Never, not for a moment," Lula told a hearing in 2017 when he was asked whether he suspected corruption during the Rio 2016 bid.

Testifying that he had issued a decree in 2009 mandating "maximum transparency" in the winning bid that year, Lula said Brazil got "the biggest vote in the history of the Olympics. The vote for Brazil was stupendous, it was marvellous.

"I'm just sorry that the charges of corruption and vote buying were made eight years later."

French President Emmanuel Macron was among the first to send his congratulations to Lula, claiming it "opens a new page in the history of Brazil."

There are probably a few IOC officials in Lausanne, though, hoping that it does not lead to an old chapter in Brazil's history being reopened and scrutinised too closely.