Ukraine’s best high jumper wins gold for her country at world championships

BUDAPEST, Hungary: The war with Russia hangs over the Olympic world these days as much as anywhere else. 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 hailed from Ukraine.
And perhaps it was perfect that Yaroslava Mahuchikh closed out that event with a gold medal hanging from her neck.
Ukraine’s best high jumper, a symbol of hope to her war-torn country and defiance to those who would see it ruined, won a championship Sunday.

She jumped 2.01 meters (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.”
Mahuchikh’s final jump of the evening came only seconds after hurdles champion Femke Bol of The Netherlands, who fell and cost her country a medal at the end of the mixed 4x400 relay on opening night, overcame a 20-meter deficit with about 80 to go to give the Dutch the win in the women’s version of the race.
Watching Bol reel in a British runner, then a Jamaican one, then cross the finish line in the lead, was easily the most outlandishly exciting 20 seconds of the nine-day meet in Budapest, which is only a short plane flight from Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv.
But nothing compared to the theater Mahuchikh delivered in her two hours on the stage.