56 Facts About Yaroslava Mahuchikh

Yaroslava Mahuchikh won the gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics, 2023 World Championships and 2022 World Indoor Championships.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was born on 19 September 2001 in Dnipropetrovsk to Olha and Oleksiy Mahuchikh.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh's father Oleksiy was a canoeist and mother Olha was a gymnast and did athletics.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh began doing sports at the age of seven following her sister's lead.

Young Yaroslava Mahuchikh began to train under her sister's coach Olena Kutsenko where what started off as play classes gradually turned into full-fledged training.

Under Stepanova's guidance, Yaroslava Mahuchikh deepened her love for sports and found her niche in high jump progressing rapidly in the next few years.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh grew to like drawing and painting and participated in art contests until about 2015 - 2016.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh dreamed of becoming an artist or singer but that changed after she started with track and field.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh went on later to enrol in Dnipro Higher School of Physical Education to pursue her new aspirarion to become a coach.

In that year, Yaroslava Mahuchikh competed at international youth track and field competition between Ukrainian, Belarusian and Turkish national athletics teams in Lutsk, winning a silver medal.

On 30 June, at the Prefontaine Classic in Palo Alto, 7th leg of the 2019 Diamond League series, Yaroslava Mahuchikh cleared 2.0 m for the first time, becoming the youngest jumper in history to do so.

In 2019, Yaroslava Mahuchikh became a member of the Central Sports Club of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was voted the European Athletics Female Rising Star and World Athletics Female Rising Star that year.

In January 2020, Yaroslava 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.

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 February, Yaroslava Mahuchikh cleared 2.06 m at Banska Bystrica, the highest any woman had jumped indoors since 2012 and a Ukrainian national record.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh won five of the seven Diamond League high jump events in 2022.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was nominated for the Women's World Athlete of the Year award by World Althletics, for the first time too.

In November, Yaroslava Mahuchikh was nominated for the 2022 International Female Athlete of the Year by Athletics Weekly and for the World Women's Athlete of the Year by Track and Field News.

In January 2023, Yaroslava Mahuchikh cleared a world-leading jump of 2.00 m at the Demyanyuk Memorial in Lviv.

Later in the year, Yaroslava Mahuchikh was a finalist in the 2023 Women's European Athlete of the Year award competition for a second consecutive year.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was nominated by World Athletics for the 2023 Women's World Athlete of the Year award, for a second time in her career.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was in the list of PAP European Sportsperson of the Year Award nominees, taking 22nd place in poll.

In January, Yaroslava Mahuchikh kicked off her 2024 campaign at the Internationales Springer-Meeting in Cottbus in superb form clearing a world-leading jump of 2.04 m, both a meeting record and the highest she ever started in a competitive year.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh equalled Iolanda Balas's record of two European Championships titles with her achievement.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh reacted to the missile attack on 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".

Yaroslava Mahuchikh became the third Ukrainian Olympic champion in athletics after Inessa Kravets in triple jump in 1996 and Nataliya Dobrynska in pentathlon in 2008.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh became the first Ukrainian sportswoman to win the Youth Olympic Games and Olympic Games and to win two Olympic medals in athletics.

For Yaroslava Mahuchikh, this was her first time and she became too the first Ukrainian sportswoman to win the award and just the second Ukrainian to be crown after high jumper Bohdan Bondarenko won the men's award in 2013.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was a finalist for the award in 2022 and 2023.

In November, Yaroslava Mahuchikh was crowned the Balkan Female Athlete of the Year by Association of the Balkan Athletics Federations, where Ukrainian Athletic Federation is a member since 2016.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was the first Ukrainian to win this award.

Later in the month, a photograph capturing Yaroslava Mahuchikh kissing her gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics made it to finalist list of the 2025 World Sports Photography Awards under "Athletics" category.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was nominated for the 2024 PAP European Sportsperson of the Year award for a second consecutive year, finishing 8th in the voting and entering the top 10 list for the first time.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was in the list of L'Equipe Champion of Champions nominees, taking 5th in poll, and for the 2024 World Women's Athlete of the Year award by Track and Field News.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh equalled Rosemarie Ackermann's and Rita Schmidt's record of three European indoor titles with her achievement.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh was the only Ukrainian athlete to win a medal in Nanjing.

Lasitskene held the rank of captain in the Russian Armed Forces while Yaroslava Mahuchikh was a junior lieutenant in the Armed Forces of Ukraine: their military ranks were awarded to them because of their outstanding athletic achievements.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh herself explained that the photo with Lasitskene had no political intent.

At the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships in mid-March 2022, Yaroslava Mahuchikh condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In July 2022, during the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Yaroslava Mahuchikh voiced support when World Athletics reaffirmed its decision to exclude Russian athletes from Oregon22.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh insisted Russians should be excluded from 2024 Paris Olympics.

In February 2024, after IOC announced in December 2023 that athletes from Russia and Belarus will be allowed to take part as individual neutral athletes in 2024 Paris Olympics, so long as they meet certain eligibility criteria, Yaroslava Mahuchikh expressed disappointment saying that it would be difficult for her to compete against athletes from those countries as they would remind her of the destruction of the cities and lives in Ukraine brought about by Russian people.

In June 2024, during the European Championships, Yaroslava Mahuchikh shared that she has spoken to international media to no avail against non-neutral former Russian athletes competing internationally under the citizenship of another country in some sports such as Elena Kulichenko, an ex-Russian high jumper who competed for Cyprus internationally since 2023 after obtaining Cypriot citizenship in 2019.

In November 2023, Yaroslava Mahuchikh supported the Ukrainian art project "Stolen art", established by United24 and the Oliz brand to draw attention to the destruction of Ukrainian culture.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh donated 500 thousand hryvnas to the military's Azov's Angels Patronage Service and another 500 thousand hryvnas to the Hospitallers to fund the treatment and recovery of wounded soldiers with head injuries.

In October 2024, Yaroslava Mahuchikh told Tribuna, a Ukrainian sports publishing house, in an interview that she donated her 2024 Paris Olympics competition bib to the "Heroes Cup" charity auction where it was sold for 300,000 hryvnas to help with military rebuilding effort.

Later that month, Yaroslava Mahuchikh became an ambassador of the Ukrainian National project "Vriatyi Kintsivky", dedicated to the rehabilitation of Ukrainian Armed Forces troops.

In November 2024, Yaroslava Mahuchikh told to a television host and media personality Masha Efrosynina in an interview that she privately donated to troops of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh is currently dating Nazar Stepanov, a Ukrainian hurdler and their national record holder, who is the son of Mahuchikh's coach Tetiana Stepanova.

In November 2023, Yaroslava Mahuchikh said in her interview that she was engaged to Nazar.

In October 2024, Yaroslava Mahuchikh told Athletistic in an interview that she had to postpone her wedding with Nazar because they wanted to hold their wedding with relatives and friends, then scattered all over the world, gathered in Ukraine, where it was impossible to do so because of the Russian invasion.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh read Harry Potter books by JK Rowling to improve her English.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh is an ambassador of Puma, Omega SA and Red Bull.

Yaroslava Mahuchikh modelled occasionally for her brand sponsors and for various fashion and lifestyle magazines such as Elle and Vogue Ukraine.

In October 2024, Yaroslava Mahuchikh starred in advertising famous cafe with patisseries "Honey" in Kyiv.