Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh says winning gold in the high jump at the World Indoor Championships showed the strength of her country as it continues to fight a war against Russia.
Mahuchikh, 20, produced a world-leading clearance of 2.02m to claim the title in Belgrade.
She had spent three days on the 2,000km journey from Dnipro to Serbia.
“I received a lot of messages,” she told BBC Sport.
“It was like ‘thank you that we are smiling’. They’ve had a lot of bad news; they’re in a war. But when they see me winning, that I won the gold medal for my country for Ukraine, it showed that Ukrainians are strong people.
“I gave them opportunity to smile a little bit. It has been difficult [to focus] but I must do this and show to the world in competition that Ukraine is a strong nation.
“We have strong people and we never give up and we will protect our independence and our freedom on all fronts.”
Mahuchikh left Dnipro after being awoken by bombs on 24 February, heading to Belgrade on 6 March after finding it impossible to train in Ukraine.
Her father and grandmother remain in Dnipro, while her mother, sister and her sister’s daughter are in Poland.
“It was a little bit frightening but after this I called my coach and we left Dnipro, and went to a village nearby, the home of my coach,” she added.
My family stayed in Dnipro in their flat but every day we saw each other. But it was so complicated to me when we decided to go to the World Championship. I didn’t know when I would come back and see my relatives and my family.
“The Ukrainian Federation manager said it would be good to go abroad now, so we went to Moldova, Romania and then Belgrade.
“It was the longest trip that I have ever been on, three days by car; it was so difficult but we arrived in Belgrade on March 9 and the Serbian Federation said they would let us do some track and field training to recover.”
Russian athletes, including Olympic champion Mariya Lasitskene, have been banned from competition, a decision Mahuchikh supports, with some appearing at pro-war rallies in Moscow.
“I think World Athletics made the right decision because Russian athletes must understand that Russia started the war and a lot of Russians supported it,” said Mahuchikh.
“We shouldn’t have to compete when our people and children are being killed by the Russian military, it’s terrible. They must understand that Russia started the war, they were the aggressors.
“It’s really terrible to see [athletes at rallies]. Some sportsmen asked what the problem was. I think a lot of them don’t understand what happened and this is why what they do at this moment.”
