Yaroslava Mahuchikh: Ukraine’s Mahuchikh wins World Indoor High Jump Gold

Yaroslava Mahuchikh won gold in the high jump at the World Indoor Championships on Saturday, overcoming the “total panic” of armed strife in her native Ukraine.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mahuchikh was forced to escape her home, hide in a cellar, and eventually make the 2,000km journey to Belgrade over three days to face what she labeled her own front line.

The reigning European indoor high jump champion, who earned Olympic bronze in Tokyo and world outdoor silver in Doha in 2019, fled her home in Dnipro only three weeks ago as the fighting grew worse.

She found her way to Serbia after “hundreds of phone calls, many changes of direction, explosions, fires, and air raid sirens”.

Coming into the competition at 1.88m, Mahuchikh had a failure at 1.92 and two at 2.00 before making the latter height.

She sailed over 2.02 to ramp up the pressure on Eleanor Patterson. The Australian responded by passing, so the bar was raised to 2.04m.

But when Patterson failed at the new height, Mahuchikh was left celebrating in the Stark Arena, the crowd rising for a standing ovation with a handful of Ukrainian flags fluttering.

Patterson claimed silver with 2.00m, with Kazakhstan’s Nadezhda Dubovitskaya taking bronze (1.98).

“To win a silver behind Yaroslava makes it even more special,” said Patterson, who had painted her nails with a blue and yellow loveheart in support of Ukraine.