Ukraine’s Mahuchikh defies odds for world indoor high jump gold

Yaroslava Mahuchikh. Pic/AFP

Yaroslava Mahuchikh overcame the "total panic" of armed conflict in her native Ukraine to win gold in the high jump at the World Indoor Championships on Saturday.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Mahuchikh was forced to flee her home, hide out in a cellar and eventually make the 2,000km trip over three days to Belgrade to face what she dubbed her own front line.

The reigning European indoor high jump champion, who won Olympic bronze in Tokyo and world outdoor silver in Doha in 2019, left her home in Dnipro just three weeks ago as the conflict escalated. She found her way to Serbia after "hundreds of phone calls, many changes of direction, explosions, fires, and air raid sirens."

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