Yaroslava Mahuchikh (Ярослава Олексіївна)

• • Height: 180 centimeters

• • Weight: ~55kg

• • Birthday: September 19, 2001 (Age 23)

• • Nationality: Ukrainian

• • Events: High jump

Yaroslava Mahuchikh Honours

• • World record holder (2.10 meters)

• • 2024 Olympic Games – Gold

• • 2020 Olympic Games – Bronze

• • 2023 World Athletics Championship – Gold

• • 2022 World Athletics Championships – Silver

• • 2019 IAAF World Championships – Silver

• • 3 x Diamond League Final Winner

• • 2 x European Champion

• • 1 x World Indoor Champion

Yaroslava Mahuchikh Early Life

Yaroslava Mahuchikh, born Sept. 19, 2001, is a Ukrainian high jumper and the current women’s high jump world record holder and defending Olympic High Jump Champion. She set her world record jump at the 2024 Paris Diamond League, the same city where she went on the win Olympic Gold later in the summer.

Mahuchikh was born on Sept. 19, 2001 in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk. As a child, her background in sport started by accompanying her sister to her karate classes. Karate wouldn’t turn out to be her lifelong passion, and after a few session, her sister brought her to the local sports club where she tried athletics for the first time.

Before specializing in the high jump, Mahuchikh tried a variety of events, including sprints, hurdles, and the long jump. On her early experiences in the sport, she said in an interview, “When I first started to compete in the high jump I didn’t achieve outstanding results – I couldn’t even jump over 1.40m! A turning point came at the Ukrainian Championships when I jumped over 1.55m.”

She met her current coach, Tetiana Stepanova, when she was 11.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh Early Career

In 2016, Mahuchikh won the gold medal at the Ukrainian National Junior Athletics Championships at the age of 14.

In July 2017, she won the gold medal at the 2017 IAAF World U18 Championships in Nairobi. She tied the championship record of fellow Ukrainian jumper Iryna Kovalenko set in 2003.

The next year, Mahuchikh added two centimeters to her personal best, jumping 1.94 meters at the European U18 Championships, which would break the championship record and give her a 10-centimeter margin of victory. By the end of the year, she would raise her personal best another two centimeters to 1.96 meters.

She continued her dominance over the upcoming years, winning the Doha Diamond League in 2019 at the age of 17 and 226 days, becoming the youngest woman to win a Diamond League event. On 30 June of the same year, at the Prefontaine Classic in the United States, she became the youngest female jumper to clear 2.00 meters.

She later jumped 2.04 m at the World Championships in Doha, taking home the silver medal and breaking the World U20 Record previously set by Heike Balckin 1989. She also became the youngest ever field event medallist in World Championships history at the age of 18 years and 11 days.

She would go on to break the U20 World Record twice more in 2020, jumping 2.01 meters and 2.02 meters a few days later.

In February of 2021, Mahuchikh cleared 2.06 m at the Banskobystrická latka meeting in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. The height was the highest indoor mark by a woman since 2012 and a new Ukrainian national record. In August, she went on to win the bronze medal in the high jump at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

After the Russian Invasion

After the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she left her homeland in March, undergoing a 2,000-kilometer journey over three days from Ukraine to Serbia to compete at the championships. She then moved to Germany to continue training during the war. In July, she received silver at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

In October, World Athletics announced that Mahuchikh and her compatriot high jumper Andriy Protsenko were shortlisted as finalists for the International Fair Play Committee’s (CIFP) Fair Play Award 2022 for displaying “incredible strength and resilience” to win silver and bronze medals respectively at the Oregon 2022 World Championships, despite facing huge challenges due to the current situation in Ukraine.

First World Championship Gold and Continued Success

In August of 2023, Mahuchikh won gold at the World Championships held in Budapest.  She became the first Ukrainian to win a world title in 10 years since 2013. 

Later in the year, Mahuchikh was a finalist in the 2023 Women’s European Athlete of the Year award competition for a second consecutive year, along with numerous other awards.

She got off to a strong start to her season in 2024, jumping a world-leading 2.04 meter jump at the Internationales Springer-Meeting in Cottbus, Germany. Her excellent early form would be a sign of things to come. At the Diamond League event in Paris in July, she jumped 2.10m to break the world record. The previous mark of 2.09 meters was set by Stefka Kostadinova at the 1987 World Championships

The day after she broke the world record, a Russian missile attack on her home country killed at least 47 and injured many more. She released a statement on her Instagram saying, “No record will bring joy while Russia attacks my country every day, kills our soldiers, and takes the lives of children and their parents.”

In August, Mahuchikh would win the Olympic gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Paris with a leap of 2.00 meters.

Personal Life

In a 2023 interview, Mahuchikh announced that she was engaged to Nazar Stepanov, the son of her coach Tetiana Stepanov.  

Mahuchikh braids her hair into pigtails before each competition, which has developed into a pre-competition ritual.

She has expressed aspirations to become a coach someday after she’s done competing.

She loves cats and volunteers at local animal shelters in her spare time.