Ukraine superstar Yaroslava Mahuchikh brings ‘good vibes’ to her war-torn country
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Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh celebrates with the Ukrainian flag after competing in the women's high jump final of the athletics event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
PHOTO: AFP
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PARIS – Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh can cap the most successful year of her career by winning women’s world field athlete of the year on Dec 1, but her overriding wish is for peace to reign over her war-torn country.
The 23-year-old high jumper has had an annus mirabilis “competing for her compatriots to give them good vibes”, lighting up Paris on two occasions.
In July, she broke the 37-year-old women’s world record with a jump of 2.10 metres at Charlety Stadium and then a few weeks later was crowned Olympic champion.
“Paris will be in my heart all my life,” she told AFP via Zoom from Ukraine.
It was one of the lighter moments as she reflected on returning home to Dnipro after the season and seeing the destruction wreaked since Russia launched the invasion in February 2022.
“I see damaged buildings, destroyed buildings. I say this and I want to cry,” she said.
“Several weeks ago rockets hit a building only 200 metres from my house. It was so loud! You know our people are so strong but I live this hope that it will finish as soon as possible and with victory.”
Such are the circumstances in Ukraine that Mahuchikh had to weigh up the emotional pull of returning to Dnipro with the risks attached.
She left Ukraine shortly after the invasion, admitting that leaving her family had been a huge wrench.
“To come back home was a big question – can I or not because every day (there are) air raid sirens and rocket attacks,” she said.
“But it is my home! It is the place where I grew up and I want to come back to my home and my people. I spent like almost my whole life here.”
Mahuchikh, who is also the reigning world outdoor champion, may have to train abroad like many of her fellow athletes but she has contributed to the war effort.
She has helped fund wheelchairs for disabled orphans and she donated her prize money from the Olympics “to our army and an animal shelter”, she said.
She has also visited the wounded in Kyiv and Dnipro, bearing her gold medal.
“It is difficult to see,” she says of what she witnessed.
“However, when I come with my gold medal it gives them some fond memories about our lives, not about the war. When you start talking about war you see how their faces change. I know they saw a lot of bad things in the war.
“I try to only give them motivation and hope.”
Whatever happens, for now her passion for the high jump remains strong.
“I am ready to fly like a swallow,” she added. AFP
