At just 24, Yaroslava Mahuchikh has won every major title there is, including three European Athletics Championships gold medals. But the passionate, yet bubbly Ukrainian is hungry for more and is even eyeing up a bigger medal wall in her home.
When reading through Mahuchikh’s achievements, you would assume they belong to an athlete much further into their career purely because of vast success she’s had.
But each medal, often gold in colour, that she earns still feels special. Achieving things she dreamed of as a child and representing her country continues to be a significant driving factor for Mahuchikh.
“I'm so happy with my gold medal and I understand that every medal is important,” she told European Athletics. “It's a gold medal so the result doesn't matter, I'm just so happy to have my third gold medal.
“[I come to Europeans because] I want to collect all medals, and I collected all the medals from all ages, and it's always fun. So I want to have more and more gold medals.
“This [Europeans] is a full competition where all European nations come and compete together, and you have like a small, big family, because track and field is so big, and so we have a big family.”
Though with so many medals, that is 10 senior global gold medals let alone Mahuchikh’s silvers, bronzes, and age group medals, finding space for them can be a challenge.
Whilst a nice problem to have, creating a space for an ever changing number of medals is a design nightmare. However, Mahuchikh seems to have found a solution, at least for now.
“I have at home now a medal wall, but before I kept them in packs because I didn't have the place,” she jested. “But now I have a place in my apartment and it's something crazy because I call this the shrine of Yaroslava because there's my medals, my photos.
“But when people come to me to visit me they find it so interesting to look at the medals. So I thought hmmm, this was a good decision.
“I need like to think about now, maybe about a room.”
On the honour of representing Ukraine
But as glamorous as it is to win the many medals in Mahuchikh’s flat, representing Ukraine on the global remains at the forefront of her mind.
She is one of the multiple Ukrainian athletes who find themselves frequenting podiums on the global stage, also including athletes such as hammer thrower Mykhaylo Kokhan and high jumper Oleh Doroshchuk.
“For me it's really important to come to competitions and represent my country especially because I show that we are alive, we continue fighting, and I think that I show people that we are so strong and will never give up,” Mahuchikh explained.
“So for me it's important to show this to different people that I'm from Ukraine and unfortunately Ukraine now in the war and I would have liked for this war to have stopped, but unfortunately it's going on four years.
“But I hope, like I say, like four years ago, I hope that it finishes as soon as possible.”
The world record-holder carries the weight of the nation each time she jumps, often honouring Ukraine through a simple blue and yellow eyeliner as well as her kit.
But she also reminisced how as a child she dreamed of competing in a stadium where people clapped just for her. Now having made that dream her reality, she also plants the seed in other young athletes minds that they too could have a stadium of people all cheering for them one day.