Yaroslava Oleksiivna Mahuchikh (, ; born 19 September 2001) is a Ukrainian high jumper and women's high jump world record holder. She is the winner of four senior global titles: 2026 World Ultimate Championship, 2022 and 2026 World Indoor Championships, 2023 World Championships and 2024 Summer Olympics. Mahuchikh is a three-time Diamond League title holder.
At the 2024 Paris Diamond League, she broke the world record in the event with a jump of 2.10 m.
Early life
Mahuchikh was born on 19 September 2001 in Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro) to Olha and Oleksiy Mahuchikh. Her father Oleksiy was a canoeist and mother Olha was a gymnast and did athletics. Her older sister Anastasia Hryhorovich was into karate and athletics and represented Ukraine in karate competitively.
Mahuchikh began doing sports at the age of seven following her sister's lead. Karate became young Mahuchikh's first sport when she accompanied her sister to her karate classes. But Mahuchikh didn't like karate and gave up after a few tries. To help channel the tireless energy of young Mahuchikh to good use, her sister brought her to the local sports club, where she trained, to try athletics next. Young Mahuchikh began to train under her sister's coach Olena Kutsenko where what started off as play classes gradually turned into full-fledged training. Prior to focusing on high jump, Mahuchikh started out competing as a sprinter, hurdler and long jumper, until her current coach Tetiana Stepanova came to the sports club in Dnipro when Mahuchikh was 11. At first, Kutsenko and Stepanova coached Mahuchikh together, but later at the age of 13, Mahuchikh came under the tutelage of Tetiana Stepanova after the coaches parted ways. Under Stepanova's guidance, Mahuchikh deepened her love for sports and found her niche in high jump progressing rapidly in the next few years.
Aside from athletics, Mahuchikh attended singing and art lessons when she was little. She grew to like drawing and painting and participated in art contests until about 2015–2016. She dreamed of becoming an artist or singer but that changed after she started with track and field. She went on later to enrol in Dnipro Higher School of Physical Education to pursue her new aspiration to become a coach.
Career 2016–2018: Youth and junior career
In 2016, she won the gold medal at the Ukrainian National Juniors Athletics Championships, held in Zaporizhzhia. In that year, Mahuchikh competed at international youth track and field competition between Ukrainian, Belarusian and Turkish national athletics teams in Lutsk, winning a silver medal.
At the age of 15, Mahuchikh competed at her first international meeting in Minsk, jumping 1.82 m. In May 2017, she won a first gold medal in her youth career at international youth track and field competition between Ukrainian, Belarusian and Turkish national athletics teams in Bursa with a clearance of 1.88 m. In July 2017, she won the gold medal at the 2017 IAAF World U18 Championships in Nairobi by the largest margin in World U18 Championships history with a personal best and world age best of 1.92 m. She equalled the championship record of her compatriot Iryna Kovalenko from 2003. A few weeks later, she won the high jump event at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Győr with a clearance of 1.89 m.
In May 2018, Mahuchikh competed at the international meeting Internationales Pfingstsportfest, winning a bronze medal with a jump of 1.86 m. In July 2018, Mahuchikh added 2 cm to her PB clearing 1.94 m at the European U18 Championships and won the gold medal by 10 cm over the runner-up, setting a new championship record. At the end of that month, Mahuchikh won a silver medal at the international track and field meeting in Schifflange, jumping 1.93 m. In October, she won the gold medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires with a combined height of 3.87 m and set a new personal best of 1.95 m at stage 2. A month after her Youth Olympic success, Mahuchikh improved her personal best to 1.96 m and equaled the world U18 best in an annual indoor meeting in Minsk.
2019–2020: First medal (silver) at the World Championships, Rising Star status and new world junior record (indoor and outdoor)
During the 2019 indoor season, Mahuchikh jumped 1.99 m at the Miloslava Hübnerová Memorial in Hustopeče and equaled Vashti Cunningham's world U20 indoor record.
At the start of outdoor season in May 2019, she won the opening meeting of the Diamond League in Doha with an outdoor personal best of 1.96 m and became the youngest athlete ever to win a Diamond League event at the age of 17 years and 226 days.
On 30 June, at the Prefontaine Classic in Palo Alto, 7th leg of the 2019 Diamond League series, Mahuchikh cleared 2.0 m for the first time, becoming the youngest jumper in history to do so. She finished 3rd at that diamond league event.
In September, she jumped 1.89 m at the Diamond League Final in Brussels, finishing in sixth place."Results". diamondleague.com. 6 September 2019. Retrieved 4 September 2023. Later that month, she jumped 2.04 m at the World Championships in Doha, winning the silver medal and breaking the world U20 record of 2.01 m held jointly by USSR's Olga Turchak and East Germany's Heike Balck since 1986 and 1989 respectively to become the youngest ever field event medallist in World Championships history at the age of 18 years and 11 days, displacing Heike Drechsler who won the long jump title in 1983 at 18 years and 241 days.
In 2019, Mahuchikh became a member of the Central Sports Club of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. She was voted the European Athletics Female Rising Star and World Athletics Female Rising Star that year."Warholm and Lasitskene crowned 2019 European Athletes of the Year", European Athletic Association, 26 October 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
In January 2020, Mahuchikh jumped 2.01 m in Lviv, a new world U20 indoor record, which she broke again a few days later when she jumped over 2.02 m in Karlsruhe. On 5 March, World Athletics officially ratified her world indoor U20 record. She was the overall winner of the World Indoor Tour in February, thereby securing a wildcard for participating in World Indoor Championships in Nanjing, later postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic regulations in China.
In August, Mahuchikh won the 2020 Herculis in Monaco, the first leg of the delayed 2020 Diamond League series, which had to revise their schedule and format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Five days later, she won the silver medal at the Irena Szewinska Memorial in Bydgoszcz, jumping 1.97 m. On 23 August, Mahuchikh won the second Diamond League stage BAUHAUS-galan in Stockholm equalling the outdoor world-leading mark of 2.00 m set by her compatriot Yuliya Levchenko in July 2020 when she opened her outdoor season in Kyiv.
In September, Mahuchikh took the silver medal at the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting, in Dessau, jumping 1.96 m. She was beaten by compatriot Yuliya Levchenko on countback, but both women bettered the previous meeting record of 1.92m set nine years ago by Levern Spencer.
Mahuchikh finished her 2020 outdoor season, with a second-place finish at the Diamond League stage Golden Gala in Rome with a jump of 1.95 m. Incidentally, it was compatriot Yuliya Levchenko who triumphed over her again at the Rome meeting in what was their fifth and final encounter of the outdoor season, giving Levchenko the bragging rights as she ended her season with a 3 to 2 head to head victory over her rising star compatriot.
2021: First Olympic medal (bronze) and first European indoor title
In January, Mahuchikh debuted her indoor season competing at the Christmas Starts in Kyiv, where she jumped 2.02 m matching her Ukrainian indoor record which she set in Karlsruhe last January. Later that month, Mahuchikh won a gold medal at the International High Jump Meeting Udinjump, held in Udine, Italy, jumping 2.00 m, but with three failures at 2.03 m.
In February, Mahuchikh cleared 2.06 m at Banskobystrická latka high jump meeting in Banská Bystrica, the highest any woman had jumped indoors since 2012 and a Ukrainian national record. That mark moved Mahuchikh to equal third on the world indoor all-time list. On 12 February, Mahuchikh won the gold medal at the Ukrainian Athletics Indoor Championships, jumping 2.00 m.
In March, she finished her indoor season receiving the gold medal at the European Indoor Championships in Toruń.
In June, Mahuchikh won the gold medal at the Ukrainian Athletics Championships in Lutsk with a jump of 2.00 m.
In July, Mahuchikh won the Diamond League stage BAUHAUS-galan in Stockholm with an outdoor world-leading mark of 2.03 m. On 10 July, she won the gold medal at the European U23 Championships in Tallinn, clearing a championship record of 2.00 m.
In August, Mahuchikh won the bronze medal in the high jump at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. It was the third Olympic medal won by Ukraine in the women's high jump event after Inha Babakova and Vita Styopina, who both clinched bronze medals too at the 1996 and 2004 Summer Olympics respectively.
In September, Mahuchikh finished first at the Diamond League stage 2021 Memorial Van Damme in Brussels, jumping 2.02 m. Later that month, she came in second at the Diamond League Final in Zurich with a jump of 2.03 m."Wanda Diamond League Final". diamondleague.com. 9 September 2021. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
2022: First World Indoor title, first European title and first Diamond League title
In February, 9 days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mahuchikh cleared a European-leading jump of 1.99 m at the Banská Bystrica high jump meeting in Slovakia.
In March, days after fleeing the Russian invasion, Mahuchikh claimed the gold medal in the high jump at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade. She had to undertake a three-day journey of 2000 km by car from Ukraine to Serbia to compete at the championships. Afterwards, she moved to Germany to train while the war continued in her country."Yaroslava Mahuchikh exclusive: On escaping Ukraine war and how 'sport unites, sport helps' foster peace". olympics.com. 27 June 2023. Retrieved 27 August 2023.
In April, Mahuchikh won the Diamond League stage Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, jumping a world-leading mark of 2.00 m, to claim her first circuit victory since the start of Russian invasion of her country. In June, she improved her world lead to 2.01 m at the Diamond League stage 2022 Meeting de Paris.
In July, Mahuchikh won the silver medal at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, and in August, she took gold medal at the European Championships in Munich, becoming the first Ukrainian to earn the European title in high jump.
In September, she won the high jump at the Brussels Diamond League meeting with a world-leading mark of 2.05 m, which was also a Ukrainian national record. Later that month, she won the Diamond League Final in Zurich with a jump of 2.03 m, 9 cm ahead of her nearest competitor to claim her first Diamond League title. Mahuchikh won five of the seven Diamond League high jump events in 2022."Stars of 2022: Yaroslava Mahuchikh". diamondleague.com. 18 November 2022. Retrieved 4 September 2023.