By Amy Tennery
PARIS (Reuters) -Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh completed her trophy cabinet with the women’s Olympic high jump gold medal on Sunday, clearing 2.00 metres in front of an adoring crowd at the Stade de France.
Australian Nicola Olyslagers took silver and Ukraine’s Iryna Gerashchenko and Australian Eleanor Patterson shared the bronze.
Mahuchikh fled her home in Dnipro after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but has kept her competitive career going and claimed Olympic gold weeks after breaking a world record that had stood since 1987 with a leap of 2.10m.
The world champion cleared the winning height on her first attempt and took the gold over the Australian by virtue of having fewer failures, bowing to the crowd as she took one shot at clearing 2.04m but knocked the bar down.
Mahuchikh was all business and kept her cool during the competition as she laid down on the ground with a sleeping bag wrapped around her while her competitors took their turns.
She and Olyslagers were the only two not to knock the bar down through 1.98 and it was game on from there, as the Australian revved up the crowd but could not get over 2.00m until the third attempt.
Neither competitor could get over 2.02 and Mahuchikh, her eyes adorned with blue-and-yellow makeup in her country’s colours, smiled after her failure at 2.04.
The bronze medal winners, who could not clear 1.98 but reached the podium with the fewest failed attempts during the competition, each ran to the stands as it became clear they were going home with a piece of Olympic hardware.
It was the second straight Olympics that two high jump competitors shared one spot on the podium, three years after Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi agreed to share the gold at the Tokyo Games.
Gerashchenko threw her arms around her compatriot after the competition wrapped up and the pair jogged around the stadium with Ukrainian flags draped over their shoulders.
Mykhaylo Kokhan added to Ukraine’s joy with bronze in the men’s hammer.
“We are very proud! Thank you for this result,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on the social media platform X. “Ukrainians know how to be strong and how to win.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery, additional reporting by in Winnipeg, editing by Ed Osmond and Toby Davis)
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