Yaroslava Mahuchikh, the Ukrainian world-record high jumper, may have just won Olympic gold, but she and other winning athletes from Ukraine are not resting in Paris — they're trying to shine the spotlight on the war tearing apart their country.
"The Olympic Games are about peace,” she said. “But Russia didn't stop, and during the Games, there were massive attacks on Ukraine.”
These missile strikes forced Mahuchikh to spend the last couple of years mostly abroad as she focused on her main goal — the Olympic gold, which she won Sunday.
She trained far from her family, including in Portugal, Estonia, Belgium and Germany. She occasionally comes to her hometown of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine, but every time she left, she didn't know when she would return.
“To achieve such high results on the international stage, you need to train abroad,” Mahuchikh said. “And it is very sad, and I really want us to be able to train fully at home for the next Olympic cycle.”
Despite the hardships, she succeeded, saying that the war gave her motivation and a greater purpose to represent her country. But the success was bittersweet.
When she broke a 37-year-old world record last month, jumping 2.10 meters (6.88 feet), her joy was brief.
“We were happy on the first evening, but the next day ... unfortunately, we have a very aggressive enemy,” she said. “Russia struck Ohmatdyt. And honestly, there was no joy anymore,” referring to the missile attack in Kyiv last month that hit the largest children's hospital in Ukraine.
But none can take a direct flight back home. A flight from Paris to Vienna, another plane from Vienna to Moldova. Then a 13 or 14-hour bus ride to Kyiv.