Life has passed sport as a priority: Mahuchikh

Ukraine’s women’s high jump world record holder Yaroslava Mahuchikh, their great hope for an Olympic athletics gold medal, said on Friday life not sport had become the priority since the Tokyo Games.

The 22-year-old world champion’s family are in Dnipro where she said they undergo daily shelling and rocket attacks by the Russian army -- she left after the invasion in February, 2022.

“You know, before the war started, sport, it was the important thing in our life, really,” she said after easing into Sunday’s final along with teammate Iryna Gerashchenko.

“But now we really appreciate lives, and value human lives a lot more and how life is invaluable,” Mahuchikh said.

Wearing her trademark blue and yellow eyeliner -- the colours of the Ukraine flag -- Mahuchikh cleared 1.95 metres, 15cm below the world record she set in July.

However, the third member of the Ukrainian trip, 2017 world silver medallist Yuliya Levchenko went out after failing to make one successful jump.

Ukraine’s strengths lie in the field events.

Men’s hammer thrower Mykhaylo Kolkan qualified for Sunday’s final.

Mahuchikh admitted on the sporting front she did feel pressure due to being the new world record holder -- she broke the 37-year-old mark on another visit to Paris on July 7.

However, the bronze medallist from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics said she was bolstered by the thought of representing her people back in her beleaguered country.

“It’s my chance to show to all people that we will continue fighting and the war in Ukraine is not stopping,” she said.

“Show our strength mentally and show people that we will fight until the end, and we will be fighting for our liberty, our independence in every field.”

Mahuchikh, whose family will not be present for the final but said a close friend would be travelling from Ukraine to be there, had been offered a place to train in Australia.

However, there is one problem.

“I really want to visit Australia, but I’m a little bit afraid of spiders!” she said, laughing.

Geraschenko, 29, wore a broad beaming smile after reaching her third Olympic final and hopes of improving on her fourth place in Tokyo.

“I’m happy because I’m not only in the final, because I’m in the Olympic Games and for me it is a great celebration,” she said.

“This is for the people of Ukraine, of course, because we can jump for them, because our people are very brave and for the military who have made it possible for us to compete here.”