Yaroslava Mahuchikh was forced to leave quickly from her hometown of Dnipro in central-eastern Ukraine when the war started on February 24 last year. So perhaps it was fitting that the last person standing on the last event of the final day of the track and field world championships in Budapest on Sunday hailed from Ukraine.

Living and training in Germany and Belgium owing to the war, Mahuchikh, Ukraine’s best high jumper, a symbol of hope to her war-torn country and defiance to those who would see it ruined, closed out that event with a gold medal hanging from her neck.

She jumped 2.01 metres (6 feet, 7 inches) to close out a riveting evening on the track -- and in the field.

“Finally, I have my gold medal,” she said of the country’s first world title since 2013, when the meet was held in Moscow. “And it’s really extra important for my country right now.”

The young athlete had to settle for silver at the last two editions of the global showpiece in 2019 and 2022.

Mahuchikh had to escape Dnipro while she was preparing for the 2022 World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. The invasion disrupted the Olympic bronze medallist’s training. “It was very difficult, we moved to Khmelnytskyi first,” Mahuchikh had said in an earlier interview after winning gold in Belgrade on March 19, 2022, recalling the first days after February 24 when the world changed for her and her fellow Ukrainians. Khmelnytskyi, in western Ukraine, is around 700km from Dnipro.

She said she saw artillery shells raining down as she rode in the car on her way out.

“There was the training camp for our small national team who would go to the (Indoor) Worlds. In the middle of our trip, we were told to move to the border.

“Our trip lasted three days. In the end, we reached Serbia and started training with no sirens, no blasts.”

The 21-year-old, wearing eyeliner colored the same blue and yellow as her country’s flag on Sunday, has trained in Germany and, most recently, in Belgium, where her mother, sister and niece are also living. Her father remains in Dnipro. Her grandmother passed away in February back in Ukraine.

She has only been home once — at the beginning of this year — and hopes to go again when the track season is over. Dnipro had been relatively safe at the outset of the fighting, but it has since become a target in the war.

“It’s really difficult mentally,” she said. “But I have big support from my coach, fans, friends. They tell me you represent our country and you will come back to us.”

That she was here at all was a testament to her courage, persistence and the assistance she’s received from far and wide.

Mahuchikh was one of 29 Ukrainian athletes who qualified for the worlds in Hungary this week where, the night before, the stadium was bathed in yellow-and-blue light. This marked the first gold medal for Ukraine and the second overall, adding to a silver won by Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk two nights earlier in the triple jump.

Russia and Belarus are both excluded from major track events, a decision led by World Athletics president Sebastian Coe, whose sport is among the few that has taken such a stringent stance against the Russians.

“Oh, it makes me choke,” Coe said of the reality that Ukraine’s athletes have been wandering the globe, looking for places to train, and live, for the past 18 months. “I cannot imagine what it must be like for athletes from Ukraine to be dealing with this landscape.”

Mahuchikh sealed her win after jumping 2 centimetres higher than Australia’s Eleanor Patterson, who beat her last year at the worlds in Eugene, Oregon. Olympic silver medallist Nicola Olyslagers took bronze. Patterson and Olyslagers made history by becoming the first Australians to share a podium in an individual event at the World Athletics Championships.

With the gold medal secure, Mahuchikh had the bar set to 2.07 to try for a personal best. She attempted thrice but failed to clear.

A few moments later, she was smiling, holding her country’s flag aloft and waiting for her medal. Her story could be among the most poignant next year at the Paris Olympics, where some sports are considering allowing Russians in — but not track.

“I don’t think about the future or what might happen,” she said. “It’s right now that is important.”

Mahuchikh said she has friends, part of Ukraine’s extensive sports family, who have died in the war — a bracing reality that puts the real stakes of sports into perspective.

She is also well aware of the power sports can have to boost spirits in a country that needs every bit of encouragement it can get as the fighting drags past the 18-month mark.

“Now it’s more important to show the world that we will continue fighting for our independence,” she said. “We know we will win this. But what is the price we will pay?”

Written with inputs from AP/PTI, Reuters