Yaroslava Mahuchikh is stronger now but there are still moments when Ukraine’s golden girl feels overcome with her nation’s grief.
The anger and sadness will rise inside when she hears about Russia’s latest act of aggression or learns of the latest harrowing death toll. “They are terrorists,” the high jump superstar, 22, says. “And they have shown it for two years.”
She is particularly infuriated by the prospect of compatriots in other events having to face Russian and Belarusian athletes who are permitted to compete under a neutral flag at the Olympics.
World Athletics have blocked that from happening in track and field but the British government were among those to have tentatively backed the neutrality proposal signed off by the IOC earlier this year. Yet Mahuchikh says their presence in Paris will simply remind Ukrainians of the suffering wrought by Vladimir Putin’s forces.
“Every time you see Russian or Belarusian athletes, you think of all the lives they have destroyed, of the homes they have destroyed,” she says. “Out of solidarity to Ukraine they should not allow athletes from those federations.”
Neither will appear at the European Championships, which begins in Rome on Friday morning with Mahuchikh the favourite to land gold.
She thinks a significant change made to her run-up, effectively shortening it, could be the key to breaking the world record of 2.09m set by Bulgaria’s Stefka Kostadinova in 1987.
And while Mahuchikh admits it is “a really brave decision” to change technique in an Olympic year, she is expending less energy running towards the bar and that means she has more power when taking off.
“It’s shown good results,” she adds, having jumped higher than anyone so far this season with 2.04m. “And we’ve time to practise before the Olympics. I want to break the world record. I’ve had attempts, two years ago in Brussels, but I know I’m ready again.”
Mahuchikh, part of Puma's stable of world champions, is also the favourite for gold in Paris. Having earned bronze in Tokyo three years ago, she has won indoor and outdoor world titles plus the European title in 2022. And considering she has spent the past 27 months living from a suitcase, such consistent success is remarkable.
It is still not safe to return home to Dnipro, where her grandmother and father remain. She has not been back since driving for 72 hours, with her coach and boyfriend, to escape via Moldova in March 2022.
Initially she spent time in Germany and Turkey, then trained regularly in Belgium but has more recently set up camp on the south coast of Portugal.
She is proud to be a wartime ambassador - “fighting for my country on the track” - but expectation has occasionally weighed heavily.
“I still sit down and realise I’m just a girl who wants to go back home, train at home in my own town,” she adds. “But a lot of people are expecting high results from me, some want only gold medals. I’m the golden girl. But I’m also a person with a lot of problems inside.”