Ukrainian athlete Yaroslava Mahuchikh, author of the best world performance of the year in the high jump (2.03 m), told Eugene on Wednesday that Russian “killers” had no place at the World Athletics Championships which begin Friday in the city of Oregon.
The 20-year-old young woman, gold medalist at the Indoor Worlds in Belgrade in March, mentioned in particular the case of her rival and ex-Russian friend, the reigning world champion and Olympic champion Mariya Lasitskene, who will not be able to not align themselves with Eugene – the international athletics federation having followed the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from its competitions following the invasion of Ukraine.
Mariya Lasitskene (left) and Yaroslava Mahuchikh no longer speak to each other.
AFP
“Before February 24 (date of the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, editor’s note), we had good relations, we spoke to each other,” Mahuchikh told reporters regarding Lasitskene. “But that day changed everything because she (Lasitskene) never wrote to our athletes. And then she wrote to Thomas Bach (president of the IOC, editor’s note) to be able to compete”.
Yaroslava Mahuchikh traveled to the Indoor Worlds in Belgrade in March, fleeing her hometown of Dnieper in eastern Ukraine in her own car. An experience she lived in a state of “total panic”, she said on Wednesday. “Three days in the car, the longest three days of my life”. Mahuchikh was a bronze medalist at the last Tokyo Olympics, and a silver medalist at the 2019 Outdoor Worlds in Doha, two competitions won by Lasitskene.