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🔴 Live: ‘Symbol of hope”: Ukraine’s best high jumper wins gold for her country
Yaroslava Mahuchikh sailed to victory in the women’s high jump on Sunday for Ukraine’s lone gold medal of the World Athletics Championships, a remarkable achievement in a season disrupted by the war in her homeland. The 21-year-old, who was forced to flee her home town of Dnipro, cleared 2.01 metres for her first world outdoor title after a pair of second-place finishes. Follow our live blog for the latest updates on the war in Ukraine. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
Issued on: 28/08/2023 – 05:28
3 min
Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh celebrates with the gold medal after winning the women’s high jump final in the World Athletics Championship in Budapest, Hungary on August 27, 2023.
Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh celebrates with the gold medal after winning the women’s high jump final in the World Athletics Championship in Budapest, Hungary on August 27, 2023. © Alina Smutko, Reuters
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NEWS WIRES
05:18am: Ukraine’s best high jumper wins gold at world championships
The war with Russia hangs over the Olympic world these days as much as anywhere else. So perhaps it was fitting that the last person standing on the last event of the final day of the track and field world championships hailed from Ukraine.
And perhaps it was perfect that Yaroslava Mahuchikh closed out that event with a gold medal hanging from her neck.
Ukraine’s best high jumper, a symbol of hope to her war-torn country and defiance to those who would see it ruined, won a championship Sunday. She jumped 2.01 meters (6 feet, 7 inches) to close out a riveting evening on the track — and in the field.
“Finally, I have my gold medal,” she said of the country’s first world title since 2013, when the meet was held in Moscow. “And it’s really extra important for my country right now.”
03:45am: Ukrainian drone ‘destroyed by air defences near Moscow’
Air defences shot down a hostile drone near Moscow in the early hours of Monday, city mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on messaging app Telegram.
He said that according to preliminary information no casualties or damage on the ground have been reported.
11:15pm: Zelensky says elections could happen under fire if West helps
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, responding to calls by a US senator this week to announce elections in 2024, said on Sunday voting could take place during wartime if partners shared the cost, legislators approved, and everyone got to the polls.
Elections cannot currently be held in Ukraine under martial law, which must be extended every 90 days and is next due to expire on Nov. 15, after the normal date in October for parliamentary polls but before presidential elections which would normally be held in March 2024.
Top American legislators visited Kyiv Aug. 23, among them Senator Lindsey Graham, who heaped praise on Kyiv’s fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin but said the country needed to show it was different by holding elections in wartime.
7:12pm: World Athletics president says he’s not changing view on Russia ‘anytime soon’
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said Sunday he would not be changing his views “anytime soon” when it comes to welcoming Russia back into the fold.
All Russian and Belarusian athletes have been banned from track and field competition “for the foreseeable future” since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That includes the option of competing under neutral status.
International sports bodies are taking wildly varying stances on allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete while the war in Ukraine continues.
Coe’s World Athletics is among the most stringent of opponents to their return should the conflict continue.
“I’ve been an athlete, I was able to prepare in the safety and security of my home city. I was able when I needed to travel abroad,” Coe told a press conference to mark the end of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest. “I cannot imagine what it must be like for athletes in Ukraine, to be dealing with this landscape. It’s an intolerable situation and that’s why I won’t be changing my views anytime soon.”
Key developments from Sunday, August 27:
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash was confirmed by genetic tests, according to a Russian inquiry.
A Russian military plane escorted a US reconnaissance Reaper drone on Sunday over the Black Sea, RIA news agency reported.
Ukraine launched a probe into a deadly plane incident that killed 3 pilots.
Read yesterday’s liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
