Featured Article
One day in Dnipro with Yaroslava Mahuchikh: Her favourite park, a meet and greet with schoolkids, and a workout at her old schooland
Published on Dec 12, 2024
Ukrainian article of the week published in the 58th edition of the "What about Ukraine" newsletter on December 12th, 2024. The article was written by Alla Vaskovska for Champion and was translated for n-ost by Tetiana Evloeva. Find the original article in Ukrainian here.
One day in Dnipro with Yaroslava Mahuchikh: Her favourite park, a meet and greet with schoolkids, and a workout at her old school
Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Olympic champion and world record holder in women’s high jump, is having a busy off-season. Her schedule is packed with interviews, meetings and award ceremonies. Notably, the 23-year-old native of Dnipro has been listed in the Top 100 Leaders by online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.
Still, Alla Vaskovska managed to link up with the Ukrainian champion in her native Dnipro, and spent an entire day following her around.
Most notably, the 23-year-old shared:
It’s six in the morning, and Yaroslava Mahuchikh is on the train from Kyiv to her home city. While it’s off-season, her schedule is as packed as ever. After spending an eventful day in the capital, the Olympic champion drifts off in her seat, and sleeps soundly for the next seven hours.
“We will be arriving in Dnipro in 30 minutes,” warns the conductor, aware of the ‘sleeping beauty’ in the carriage.
Yaroslava registers the announcement, but still finds herself dozing off. Her worried parents wake her. The rest of the passengers have disembarked, and they’ve come on the train to help their daughter carry off her luggage.
After spending a long time in sport, Yaroslava has learned to rest anywhere. There’s even a running joke that she won her Olympic gold in her sleep.
“I wasn’t asleep, of course, I just closed my eyes to recover and to think about my next jump,” explains the athlete. “I took up the habit of resting on the mat in 2018 because it does come in handy. As for the blanket, I adopted that habit after the Tokyo Olympics, because it was very hot, I overheated, and then I was freezing as I started to cool down. My coach, Serhii, suggested buying a backpacking blanket, and it really helped my thermoregulation. I just go and lay down to reduce unnecessary warm-ups and running around, to save my energy for the jump, and the jump only.”
Paris 2024
It’s been three years since Yaroslava swore by the technique of lying down and resting with her eyes closed, which she has done at numerous world championships, European competitions, and Diamond League stages, however, it was only during the Paris Olympics that the media took notice of her habit, branding her ‘the sleeping beauty’.
“It made me quite happy, actually, as it presented yet another opportunity to remind the world of the ongoing war in Ukraine,” she says. “What I liked most was the Ukrainian memes with the four cats looming over the photographer, saying, ‘Yaroslava, wake up, the Olympics is over! Yaroslava, F-16 fighter jets are already in Ukraine!’"
Homecoming
This has been her third season spent against the backdrop of the full-scale war, and Yaroslava has been spending most of her time abroad. Yet she seizes every opportunity to come to her native Dnipro, which she still holds dear, even after visiting dozens of cities around the globe.
“Every time I return to my city, I take a breather thinking ‘I’m finally home’. I always wait for that moment, so I can finally see my parents, sister, extended family, and my cat again. One never forgets about their cat,” she laughs.
The first thing she does after getting off the train and hugging her loved ones at the railway station, is to go to her sister’s place to pick up her cat. Then they have a family reunion where they catch up with one another, and after that, Yaroslava goes out for a walk to her favourite park, Taras Shevchenko.
“This is where I grew up, this is where my people are,” she says. “We are now strolling through the park that I love, where I come to recharge. This is where I used to work out as a kid, jogging and running uphill. As weird as it may sound, I’m not scared of shelling when I’m home. I want to keep living in Ukraine. I’m currently living abroad as this is the only way I can keep delivering my best results, representing my country and reminding the world that we keep on fighting, and that the war isn’t over.”
The full-scale invasion found Yaroslava in her native Dnipro. She was at home with her boyfriend, Nazar, when she heard explosions and the whizz of rocket missiles.
In those initial days in early 2022, competitions and training didn’t even cross her mind. She was volunteering, fulfilling her need to be useful and make a difference. However, the first main event of the season was approaching, the World Indoor Championship in Belgrade, which she had been preparing for before 24 February 2022.
“This was my chance to speak, and to scream about the war in my country,” she says. “I believe that there, in Belgrade, was the only time when I specifically aimed for the gold. I wanted to win the gold medal so badly, because winners get to talk to the press afterwards, and I wanted to tell them about Ukraine."
After she won the gold in the Serbian capital, Yaroslava hoped she would return to Dnipro in two weeks, and that the war would be over soon. However, she has ended up living abroad for the past three years. She now resides in Belgium, where her neighbours have already figured out that they have an Olympic champion living next door. They approach her for autographs and come to every long-jump event taking place in Brussels, where they cheer for their world-record-holding neighbour.
Pre-competition rituals: breakfast, braiding hair, make-up, and sitting in silence
Yaroslava doesn’t have any specific superstitions when it comes to competing — after all, she is a proud owner of a black cat. Instead, she has certain habits and rituals that help her tune in.
Not a big fan of breakfasts, Yaroslava makes sure to have one on the day of the competition, and then she goes for a walk around the city. After some strolling, she takes a break, and reads a book or listens to music. An hour before she is scheduled to leave for the stadium, she braids her hair (she loves wearing it in two braids) and puts on make-up, her renowned blue-and-yellow winged eyeliner.
“Eyeliner helps me get my mind off the competition, as all I can think about is how to draw matching wings on both eyes. Sometimes it takes some wiping off and re-drawing, and I tell myself, ‘Stay calm, this time, they will turn out better’,” she laughs.
Before leaving for her bus, Yaroslava and her coach Tetiana Stepanova spend about ten minutes sitting in complete silence. After that, they get up and head for the stadium.
“Of course, I’m nervous when I’m about to compete, how can I not be? I love my job, and I want to do my best, so of course there’s adrenalin. Still, it's important that I don’t burn out. It’s hard when you are young, but the older you become and the more you keep jumping, it gets much easier.”
“Just go out there and show them what we’ve been working so hard on,” are the words that Yaroslava’s coach Tetiana Stepanova keeps saying before every competition.
31 January 2024 marked the beginning of what was to become Yaroslava’s most successful season so far, setting a record in the tournament in Germany. Back then, she hit the mark of 2.04 m. Later, in March, she won the silver medal at the World Indoor Championship in Glasgow, behind the Australian Nicola Olyslagers.
“Back then, people were posting, ‘If she’s only got the silver, what can we expect of [her in] the Olympics, then?’ I was dumbfounded: since when has silver become ‘not medal enough’ for my people? They wrote as though I had never even reached the finals, and had failed in the competition entirely. Of course, sometimes such things do hurt, and you can’t just brush off everything in life. Sometimes things like that break you a bit. But it is what it is. Back in Glasgow, Nicola Olyslagers was stronger and better prepared mentally, and I wasn’t. So we did our homework, analysing every bit and piece — and the rest is history.”
A historic summer: a new world record
Should Yaroslava write an essay ‘How I spent my summer’, it would make an exciting and motivational read. In June, the athlete defended her title as a European Champion, winning the gold medal at the European Championships in Rome, by hitting the mark of 2.01 m. She received her award from Stefka Kostadinova, then undisputed owner of the ‘eternal record’ in women’s high jump of 2.09 m from almost 37 years previously. The retired athlete hugged Mahuchikh and whispered in her ear: “You are ready! Just now, you cleared 2.01; you can do 2.10 at the Paris Olympics.”
The Ukrainian athlete, however, had known she was ready for some time then. On 7 July, she broke the world record in high jump by jumping 2.10 m at the Wanda Diamond League in Paris, breaking the previous world record. Since then, Yaroslava has included ‘210’ in almost every autograph she gives to her fans.
“‘Today will be special’ was the feeling I had as I was doing my hair and makeup that morning in Paris.
“However, at the stadium, I came to terms with the realisation that nothing special might happen. Firstly, it took me two attempts to hit the 195 cm mark, and then the story repeated itself when I reached 201 and 203… The breaking point came when I hit 207, on my second attempt. That was my personal record, and National record, too. I told myself, ‘Wow, I made it!’ We took some time pondering whether I should go for 210. I mean, we had the Olympics ahead of us, and I still needed to recover from an injury… I ended up deciding to give it at least one go. And I made it!!! The emotions were overwhelming.
“Before jumping the bar at 210, I thought: what a celebration would Ukraine have should I make it! However, my joy was short-lived, as, on the very next day, the Russians bombed the Okhmatdyt, a children’s hospital in Kyiv. Sadly, this is how we live our lives, alternating between accomplishments and tragedies.”
News of bombings back home always throw Yaroslava off balance, and make it extremely hard for her to focus on her next jumps.
“You can’t help but sit and think, ‘How can I be high jumping?’ when, for instance, another missile hits a residential high-rise near my parents’ home, and people are trapped under the debris?
“In those moments, I tell myself: ‘I have to make that jump’, so I can talk to the media and get to tell them about the news I just received, so that everybody knows about it. This is what helps me get myself together, this is what helps to keep me fighting.”
Olympic gold: the secret in the sequence
Yaroslava Mahuchikh’s running start gave her the edge in the game. Her team had been working on it, and even in 2024, they made two adjustments. While the athlete initially preferred to start with a series of short leaps, they abandoned this move in favour of running, to save energy.
“We added another two steps as the summer season was nearing,” she says. “That is, I used to take nine short leaps before, and suddenly there were 11 leaps to make. So I spent March, April and May implementing that change, trying hard to memorise that new sequence to a T. It’s not that simple, when you perfect your running start for seven years, and then BOOM! — and out of the blue, you have to be doing something different.”
Yaroslava doesn’t believe the 2.10m jump to be her limit. She has already set her sights on hitting the 2.15 mark. However, that will take some time, so she might want to start with 2.12 m.
“My world record is proof that impossible is nothing. There’s a popular notion in sports schools that today’s sport is supposedly cleaner from doping than it was 37 years ago. While I can’t be sure that is the case, I am happy that my achievements were built on hard work, my diet, my recreational routines and my state of mind. It’s so much cooler this way.”
Paris Gold: a chance to give Ukraine a voice
One month after setting the new world record, Yaroslava returned to Paris to achieve yet another of her goals and win gold in the Olympics. The euphoria from her previous achievement was short-lived, but left her with more confidence. Mahuchikh entered the sector as a world record holder, the number one in her game.
“Finally!” was her first thought after she won the Olympic gold.
“I knew there was nobody in the entire world who could jump higher than I could,” she says. “Still, I never felt that pressure, like, ‘Oh my God, this is the Olympic Games, I absolutely have to be the best!’. I was quite relaxed, and that mindset made me really happy. This is the perfect mindset to have before any competition.”
Having won the gold medal, Yaroslava spent the next four hours speaking to journalists from all over the globe, telling each and every one of them about the war, the bombings and shelling, about how over 500 athletes and coaches who were killed so far due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
‘This is what keeps me going right now. I have to keep winning, to be able to keep reminding the world about our war. This is my mission as Ukraine’s ambassador, and to keep doing that, I have to keep winning.”
Still, the native of Dnipro didn’t end the season with the Olympics: she still had to compete in another three (!) Diamond League tournaments.
“I had a hard time getting into the right mood. I was thinking, ‘Jumping? Again? How can I keep going?’ I was so exhausted, emotionally. Still, I scrambled myself together and did my part, winning my third Diamond League stage, and that was the worthy ending of my season, which I always strive for.”
Ending the season well has been the lesson that Yaroslava’s coach Tetiana Stepanova has taught the high-jumper since she was young. After each successful jump, she asked Yaroslava to just forget it all and try again. Every next attempt was better than the last, and only after she had reached her limit with her best result did they end the training session.
“Today, Yaroslava can just glance at me and know without any words what she has to do next,” explains Stepanova. “After eight years of working together, we find mere glances enough to understand each other. She has remarkable self-control, and she is a good listener. She can instantly recreate every move I’m showing her.”
The track and field where it began
Yaroslava arrives at the Olympic Reserve School No.3, located on the left bank of the Dnipro River. Soon, she will have to start preparing for her next season, so she has added some relaxed workouts to her schedule. This is the very same school that Yaroslava first attended as a seven-year-old, choosing track and field, specifically hurdles.
When she turned 11, she was thinking of quitting sports altogether, to pursue training in vocals and music. However, her coach Tetiana Stepanova managed to make her fall in love with athletics all over again, and so the world welcomed its champion.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like if we had never met each other back then,” shares Yaroslava. “I dropped the hurdle racing and chose high jumps instead, because I liked it when everyone got together in a place and each of us was given three attempts in jumping, for each position of the bar. And there’s that feeling like you’re flying… Even today, I occasionally imagine that I’m a bird flying over the bar high in the sky, which is really cool.”
Her coach recalls that the first thing she remembers about Yaroslava were the huge, mischievous grey-blue eyes of a thin girl who rebelled against working out, and hid behind the older boys.
“Her eyes are still the same, you know,” adds Stepanova. “I am proud to be coaching this girl. Getting her as my protegee was a tremendous stroke of luck. This year, our team did our best to make the entire world talk about Ukraine.”
Donated UAH 3,000,000 of her prize money to charities
While breaking the world record gave Yaroslava the biggest surprise of the past season (even bigger than the Olympics gold), it also presented her with an opportunity to do good deeds.
“To me, this is a matter of principle: after winning a gold medal, I donate part of my prize money to support the Ukrainian military. I’ve donated money before, too, helping people who approached me reach their fundraiser goals. I just never made this knowledge public, because I never understood why I would need to advertise something like that. But, in the third year of the full-scale war, I decided to try and lead by example, showcasing the importance of us keeping the donations flowing.”
She donated UAH 1,000,000 [~EUR 22,800] to help buy vehicles for the combat units of the Defence forces. Angels of Azov and Hospitallers foundations received UAH 500,000 [~EUR 11,400] each. Yaroslava donated another million to help animal welfare organisations.
“Unfortunately, pets are unable to fend for themselves, so I supported the shelter where I got my cat from,along with three other trusted charities that UAnimals recommended.”
Homecoming tradition: meet-and-greets with schoolchildren
Yaroslava often spares some of her time during off-seasons for holding meet-and-greets for kids, both in Dnipro and elsewhere. Yaroslava and her coach Tetiana Stepanova visit Gymnasium No.74 in Dnipro, at the invitation of the local PE teacher Yaroslav Trykhlib. For the occasion, every schoolchild who plays sports wears all their medals around their neck. They also prepare questions. The kids want to know when Mahuchikh is planning to retire, whether she ever feels too lazy to work out, how her own school life had been, and how she had started in athletics.
“Looking back, what advice would you give to your 13-year-old self?” one kid asks.
“I would tell myself to keep going and never give up,” says Yaroslava, “and mind my own business because that’s what produces the best results.”
The athlete also recalls that she had been a straight-A student in her senior year at school, successfully passing her National multitest a day before winning a championship in Germany. She advises the kids to invest more effort in their English, as that is something that she herself was trying to catch up with, and is taking online lessons with a private tutor.
One of the girls presents the athlete with a blue-and-yellow loom band, and a ring made of beads — and Yaroslava immediately puts them on.
“I wanted to support her so that she wouldn’t feel sad,” explains the girl. “She said in her interview once that she was scared in the early days of the full-scale war, and that she was worried about her parents. I wanted to give her this token of support, as I, too, am worried about my dad who is at the frontline.”
As the meet-and-greet draws to a close after one hour, Yaroslava finds herself surrounded by around 20 children, who all want a picture with the champion — and her autograph. The athlete refuses no one.
“I don’t want to be an idol. I’m just an ordinary person who does what she loves most and really loves her job. If I happen to motivate some kid to achieve the same level of success as myself, or even better, I will be on cloud nine. I want more children to be playing sports, even as amateurs.”
“Me time” during off-season: cat, drawing, books and family
Of the two months she spends at home, Yaroslava only enjoys one free evening. She spends that time painting a picture by numbers and playing with her cat.
“My cat,” the athlete sighs, “I’ll need to give him up to my family soon enough. At first, he stayed with my parents, but now he lives with my sister and her family. They are pestering me already: ‘Hey, give us back our cat!’, and I’m like, ‘Whoa-whoa-whoa, that’s MY cat, and he’s perfectly fine with me, thank you very much.’”
Yaroslava is 15 pages away from finishing former editor of Vogue Anna Wintour’s biography. She ordered many more books to be delivered to her sister’s address while she was abroad, and hoped to read them all while she was at home…
“Yeah, right. Many of those books are still in their packaging, I never even got to open them. Now I’ll have to bring them all with me.”
The athlete prefers to spend her leisure time with her family, playing board games, reminiscing, and having meaningful conversations.
“I try my best to keep in touch with my family while I’m abroad, too. Having video calls and instant messengers sure helps. I was really happy when my parents visited me in Portugal while I was in a training camp there. That time together really gave me (and them, too) a boost for the upcoming season.”
Another ardent supporter of the athlete is her fiancé, hurdle runner Nazar Stepanov. They have been together for five years, and in 2024, Nazar proposed.
“I’m really happy that we found one another and are now living together. I really hope that one day (preferably, after the war is over) we can have a wedding. I want the wedding to be in Dnipro, to have all our family and friends there. Today, gathering everyone together like this is impossible, with our nearest and dearest scattered all over the globe.”
Preparations for the new season
While Yaroslava has already started her training in Dnipro, her full-fledged training programme is about to begin in December. On 28 November, she leaves Ukraine for the island of Tenerife.
“I will keep up with my schedule, that’s the way I like it most. I will be training, recovering, and training some more. My first competition is scheduled for late January, and the closest major competitions are in March, namely, the European and World Indoor Championships. I really want to supplement my gold medal from Belgrade with another one, from China, and hang them side by side.”
On 1 December, she waits to see whether she will win the title of Female Field Athlete of the Year. The ceremony is to commence at 18:00, or 6 p.m. Kyiv Time (GMT +2).
Updated: Yaroslava Mahuchikh has just been recognised as Female Field Athlete of the Year 2024.
“This nomination highlights my path from my first world championship five years ago to this day, when I have already won so many titles, and even set a new world record,” shares Yaroslava.
Each successful season, like each successful jump, leaves the athlete wanting to do even better. The one person she’s always trying to outdo is herself.
Cross-border and multiperspective reporting in your inbox
A monthly overview of project news, selected queer stories and job opportunities. At the moment focused on History Unit, a project about the persecution of queer people under National Socialism and today.
A daily roundup of European media debates, available in English, German, French, Russian, and Turkish.
The Eurasian Climate Brief is a podcast focusing on climate news in the region stretching from Eastern Europe, Russia down to the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Weekly insights on the war against Ukraine discussed in European media, debunking disinformation, and spotlighting key narratives and voices from Ukraine.
