Yaroslava Mahuchikh, the Ukrainian athlete who escaped the bombings to win gold at the World Cup

Yaroslava Mahuchikh, a high jumper from Ukraine, has obtained the most emotional medal of the Belgrade 2022 Indoor World Championship after winning a test in which she fought side by side until the end with the Australian Eleanor Patterson, world leader of the year to date. her story is viral.

The athlete has managed to overcome the convoluted situation in her country the odyssey he had to live to get there to Belgrade, where he settled on March 9 after a long trip that began on February 24, the date of the first Russian bombardment of his city, Dnipro.

“I woke up in my apartment to the terrible sounds of explosions, artillery fire and gunshots. Even before I called my parents, I understood that this was a war”Mahuchikh explained about the way he escaped from Ukraine.

“After hours of total panic, we left our city and we moved to a small town not far from home. No one thought to train at that time, as we were forced to spend days in the basement just following the news from kyiv, Sumy and Kharkiv minute by minute.”counted.

Mahuchikh’s odyssey

Thanks to the coordination of their agent, Aivar Karotamm, and their federation they found a way to leave Ukraine and reach Serbia through Romania, a journey of almost 2000 kilometers in the midst of increasingly violent Russian bombardments on Ukrainian territory.

In Belgrade, Mahuchikh was always in the fight for medals. He only hesitated at 1.92, a height that he passed to second. Afterwards, he led for the first time after jumping on his first attempt over 1.98, and ended up playing the victory against the Australian Patterson above 2 meters.

Mahuchikh jumped back to first at 2.02 and forced Patterson to save two attempts at 2.04. The Australian could not with that height and Mahuchikh brought the delirium to the Stark ArenaWorld Cup scene. He then tried the 2.04, already with gold in his pocket, but broke the bar.