Yaroslava Mahuchikh rises to occasion to secure high jump gold for Ukraine

Yaroslava Mahuchikh tied her orange trainers, prepared her run-up and could hardly suppress a smile. She would be Olympic champion: that was certain after Nicola Olyslagers, her likable Australian rival, had missed her third attempt to clear 2.02 metres.

This attempt at 2.04m would be ceremonial, procedural, a glory run with the spoils already assured. Like the silver medallist it turned out she could not quite clear the bar, but that hardly mattered. Within minutes she was parading a Ukraine flag around the track with her compatriot Iryna Gerashchenko, who took joint bronze, and the crowd rose to acclaim a talent capable of becoming an all-time great.

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The previous night Olha Kharlan, the national fencing icon, had led Ukraine to their first gold of this most meaningful Olympic Games by inspiring a stunning turnaround in the women’s team sabre event. It happened 16 years after Kharlan’s first title on this stage and the moment felt profoundly appropriate. Now Mahuchikh, an astonishing competitor who has her best years ahead of her, can be added to the sparkling list of women who are laying bare a nation’s resilience for the world to see.

While Olyslagers prepared for what would be her final try, Mahuchikh performed her usual inter-jump routine. It involves snuggling in a sleeping bag, the vibe part camping trip and part teenaged midnight feast. Prior to her second attempt, she had broken off to walk towards the gaggle of Ukrainians behind her in the lower tier; clearly requesting one last push.

In the end it was not really needed: Mahuchikh can jump better than this, as she proved in setting a world record of 2.10m last month, but she won through having a cleaner record than Olyslagers during this final. “I want to thank the armed forces of Ukraine and all the military, volunteers and people who support us,” she said afterwards. “These are medals for the whole country.”

For Mahuchikh this had been a chance to strike gold for her country while writing the latest chapter in a remarkable young life: This is a 22-year-old who, less than a month after Russia invaded her country in February 2022, undertook a three‑day journey by road to Belgrade and promptly became European indoor champion.

She had left her home in Dnipro, a city that remains under regular attack, and lived at her coach’s home in the countryside; when sirens rang out they would hide in the cellar. Nothing that happened in Paris could allow any aspersions to be cast about her resilience and sheer brilliance.

In Paris she knew the odds would favour a showdown with Olyslagers. That is exactly how it shook down, competitors being wicked off until the world’s two best jumpers were left to face the ultimate physical and psychological test.

An unfortunate ankle fracture for the Serbian world No 3, Angelina Topic, had removed a sizable stumbling block. But the wider context is never far away at these Olympics and there was a dark curiosity in wondering how Mahuchikh would interact with the Cyprus representative and world under-23 champion, Elena Kulichenko.

Back in 2019 Kulichenko, who was born near Moscow, was able to switch to Cypriot nationality because of her father’s business in the country. Russia had already been suspended amid the doping scandal; it is not an isolated case this summer and Mahuchikh made her displeasure at competing against Kulichenko clear before the games. For her part, Kulichenko had called her peer’s attitude “unreasonable”.

In the event they barely crossed paths and Kulichenko, unable to clear the 1.98m bar, was long gone by the time this sport’s superstars locked horns. Gerashchenko, a relative veteran at 29, soon discovered she would share third with another Australian, Eleanor Patterson, and it turned into another of those memorable occasions where Ukraine makes itself heard emphatically.

This was not Mahuchikh’s first rodeo: she won bronze in Tokyo and, perhaps expedited both by war and a preternatural evenness, carries an old head on those flexing shoulders. That has been the case for every representative in Paris: none of them are simply sportspeople and it felt significant that, as the 33-year-old Kharlan enters the winter of her career on a high, Ukraine have a poster girl and globally recognisable figure ready to beat the drum. She has already won it all. “The sky’s the limit,” she said. “I want to improve myself and jump higher and higher.”

In contrast to Mahuchikh’s self-made cocoon, Olyslagers preferred to sit back and read from an old performance jotter during the downtime. She might find the new champion has written the book on elite performance on this stage now. The lap of honour complete, Mahuchikh embraced supporters from her homeland before taking her leave. “Ukraine, I’m bringing the gold home!” she shouted into a camera. Along with the pride and galvanisation her accomplishments instil in an embattled country, she will be back soon enough.