The 20-year-old high jumper escaped Russian shelling in Ukraine to compete at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade

Yaroslava Mahuchikh’s journey to the World Indoor Championships was as remarkable as the high jump gold medal she won.

On February 24 – the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – she left a cellar in her home town of Dnipro to the sound of explosions before making a three-day trip across Ukrainian countryside to Belgrade, a journey that consisted of nearly 2000km.

She knows she can’t return home in the immediate future but Mahuchikh showed such poise, dignity and defiance in becoming world indoor high champion that she needn’t be in Ukraine to inspire those from her homeland.

“I want to show Ukrainian people are strong people,” the Olympic high jump bronze and world silver medallist said after the event. “They never give up. Our military protect our country at home and today, I protect my country on the track.”

There was no raw emotion from Mahuchikh when she received her medal in the Štark Arena. To hear the Ukrainian national anthem played amidst the circumstances was spine tingling and yet you could tell the 20-year-old wasn’t overawed by her achievements, as she stared at the big screen portraying the Ukrainian flag with a steely look.

Mahuchikh won gold with 2.02m to Australia’s Eleanor Patterson – who broke the Oceanic record with a first-ever clearance of 2.00m – and Kazakhstan’s bronze medallist Nadezhda Dubovitskaya, now the Asian record-holder with 1.98m.

This was an escape for Mahuchikh where she could forget about the horrors of war for a brief moment and focus on the event she first took part in at the age of 13. With Ukrainian flags draped around most corners of the arena, it was a reminder that she wasn’t alone.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh escaped Dnipro when the Russian military started shelling the city, made a three day drive from Ukraine to Belgrade and became World Indoor champion in the high jump ??

She's now collected her gold medal ?#WorldIndoorChamps ?? pic.twitter.com/NmPGdjkkRO

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) March 19, 2022

Safe to say, it wasn’t hard to get hold of one. When Patterson tried and failed to take the outright lead with a 2.04m jump Mahuchikh and the thousands of the supporters knew that she’d done it.

The cheers were deafening. As the entire arena got to its feet Mahuchikh beamed and radiated a smile that captured the hearts of those present and no doubt the millions who watched around the world. She then proudly lifted the Ukrainian flag above her head and beneath the blue and yellow eye shadow, looked Patterson in the eye and hugged the Australian.

Patterson, donning blue and yellow fingernails in support of her fellow competitor, stood by Mahuchikh – five years her junior – amidst the backdrop of flashes, applause and cheering.

“I have such respect for all the Ukrainians who have made it here. It’s incredible to see them and phenomenal for Yaroslava [Mahuchikh] to come away with the gold,” Patterson said.

“I said a few words to her at the end and I painted my nails blue with a yellow love heart on them today just to communicate a small gesture to them that my heart goes out to them. I think she appreciated it.”

Mahuchikh stole the headlines in Belgrade but she wasn’t the only Ukrainian to medal.

World and European long jump silver medallist Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk won a silver medal in only her second triple jump competition as a senior with a personal best of 14.74m. The fact that she finished a whole metre behind Olympic triple jump champion Yulimar Rojas – who broke her own world record in the Serbian capital – was almost irrelevant.

A second medal of the World Indoor Championships for Ukraine as Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk wins silver in the triple jump with a personal best of 14.74m ??

Just a day after Yaroslava Mahuchikh won gold in the high jump ?#WorldIndoorChamps ?? pic.twitter.com/nSqi7EBrYp

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) March 20, 2022

Any women’s triple jump fan will tell you that second to Rojas is honestly the best you can realistically hope for regardless of how well you jump. Bekh-Romanchuk decided to plunk for that event and not her favoured long jump – won by home favourite and Olympic and double world bronze medallist Ivana Vuleta – so can be proud to pick up the silver medal.

Rojas, as Patterson did in the high jump, embraced Bekh-Romanchuk as the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag furled around both. They won different coloured medals but the respect was all to be seen.

The fact is that six Ukrainian athletes travelled to Belgrade and a third of their team picked up medals. Before the championships we weren’t even sure that Ukraine would be able to field a team but such is the power of sport that Mahuchikh, Bekh-Romanchuk, Anna Plotitsyna, Iryna Gerashschenko, Yana Hladiychuk and Yuliya Lobann – an all female team – competed.

Hladiychuk just missed out on a medal in the pole vault but what was even more striking was the ‘Stop the War’ statement written on her face.

Olympic high jump champion Gianmarco Tamberi also had the names of Bodhan Bondarenko and Andriy Protsenko – two Ukrainian high jumpers who sadly didn’t make it to Belgrade – on his arm in a show of support.

The World Indoor Championships saw three world records from Rojas, Mondo Duplantis and Grant Holloway but the show of solidarity from athletes was as much and if not more of a memory to take away from Serbia than anything else.

And athletics is one sport that understands the historic nature of political protest more than most, one explored by Michael Johnson is his multi-award winning podcast Defiance.

In 1936, Jesse Owens’ mere presence at the Berlin Olympics, in-front of Adolf Hitler, was an act of protest. He won four gold medals across the 100m, 200m, 4x100m and long jump and set world records in the latter three, just to compound the misery for the Nazis watching on.

Then, in 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a single gloved fist – the sign of black power – during the US national anthem. The pair also removed their shoes in relation to black poverty and wore beads to signify the history of lynching in the US.

Just 12 years later, 65 countries boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Countries like Great Britain, France and Australia sent athletes and protested in different ways like refusing to turn up for the opening ceremony.

Belgrade was another chapter of athletics’ long history with protest. Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian athletes used their platforms to protest Russia’s invasion of a sovereign nation and deliver a message of solidarity, defiance and support towards those in Ukraine.

⚡️Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh wins gold at World Indoor Championships.

It reportedly took her three days to get to Belgrade, where the championship is held.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 19, 2022

Mahuchikh’s victory in the high jump was picked up quickly by The Kyiv Independent and shared thousands of time on social media. Her story became international news in a blink of an eye and she transcended her event and athletics as a whole.

Simply put, that gold medal symbolised the strength of Ukrainians.