Italy is a country renowned for its culinary delights and it is fitting that the entry-lists for the women’s jumps at Roma 2024 will whet the appetites of athletics fans everywhere. With the perfect mix of established champions and emerging names, there are some tasty offerings on the Roma 2024 menu.
Mahuchikh targets back-to-back high jump titles
Take the women’s high jump for example. Still only 22, Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh is rapidly becoming one of the sport’s stars. Since winning silver at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha with a world U20 record of 2.04m at the age of 17, she has been a relentless medal-winning machine.
Her impressive haul already includes two World Athletics Championships gold medals, Olympic bronze, European gold, two European Indoor gold medals and world indoor gold and silver. She opened her outdoor season with a 2.00m clearance for victory in Stockholm on Sunday evening.
"Rome is a special place for me. My first Diamond League was in Rome in 2018. Second, the world record in high jump was set in Rome in 1987 [2.09m by Stefka Kostadinova of Bulgaria.] So, it’s a really special place and this place has a lot of energy.
"Italian fans, Italian people (it will be) so loud, so crazy. I am looking forward to this competition," Mahuchikh told European Athletics ahead of the championships.
She will start as a hot favourite for another title in Roma 2024. But there is another athlete following the same trail that Mahuchikh has blazed.
Serbia’s Angelina Topic won bronze at the Munich 2022 European Athletics Championships aged only 17 to become the event’s youngest ever medallist and has continually improved, raising her national record to 1.98m this year. The European U20 champion is a serious medal threat again this summer.
World indoor bronze medallist Lia Apostolovski of Slovenia will be looking for another major medal, whilst Germany’s Christina Honsel, fourth at the World Indoor Championships, is still seeking her first senior medal. Her compatriot Imke Onnen is also in the mix after finishing second to Mahuchikh in Stockholm.
Other medal contenders include Mahuchikh’s Ukrainian teammate and training partner Iryna Gerashchenko, Bulgaria’s former European and Olympic silver medallist Mirela Demireva and Morgan Lake, the fourth-placer at the 2023 World Athletics Championships
Qualification takes place on Friday 7 June ahead of the final on Sunday 9 June.
The rise and rise of Caudery to continue in Rome?
Great Britain’s Molly Caudery is one of the breakthrough athletes of the last 12 months. Since smashing her personal best by clearing 4.75m to finish fifth in the women’s pole vault at the Budapest 2022 World Athletics Championships, Caudery has gone from strength to strength.
She cleared 4.86m during the indoor season - still the world lead for 2024 thus far – and went on to win gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March. With a 4.84m clearance already under her belt this summer in far from ideal conditions from the Golden Spike in Ostrava, she heads to Roma 2024 full of confidence.
But in Finland’s Wilma Murto, she has a worthy opponent. The defending European champion and world bronze medallist has cleared a season’s best of 4.81m and is a 4.85m athlete at her best. She cleared that 4.85m to win gold in Munich 2022 where she broke her lifetime best three times to win the title.
And at 35, Slovenia’s Tina Sutej is still a tough competitor, having placed fourth at the last two World Athletics Championships. She won bronze at Munich 2022, one place behind Greece’s Ekaterini Stefanidi who is seeking her fifth successive medal at the European Athletics Championships having also won silver in 2014 and gold in 2016 and 2018.
The women’s pole vault qualifying round is on Saturday 8 June with the final on Monday 10 June.
Who will succeed Spanovic in the long jump?
Defending European and world champion Ivana Spanovic of Serbia is absent, but the women’s long jump is still a competition deep in quality. Olympic champion Malaika Mihambo is the class act of the field and leads the season’s rankings with 6.95m.
She has stood on all three steps of a European Athletics Championships podium and will be looking to regain a title she first won in Berlin 2018, after winning bronze in Amsterdam 2016 and silver in Munich 2022.
In fellow Germans Mikaelle Assani and Laura Raquel Muller, she has two emerging domestic rivals nearing in on seven metres, who could be ripe for a senior international breakthrough. But the sentimental favourite for the Roma 2024 crowd will undoubtedly be Larissa Iapichino.
The daughter of twice world gold medallist and twice Olympic silver medallist Fiona May and Italian pole vault international Gianni Iapichino, she is already starting to make her own mark in the sport. Last year she won silver at the European Athletics Indoor Championships with 6.97m behind Great Britain’s Jazmin Sawyers who is sadly missing from the championships due to injury.
Also worth watching is Agate De Sousa, now competing for Portugal since switching from São Tomé and Príncipe. With a 7.03m personal best, she is one of the longest jumpers in the field.
Add in world bronze medallist Alina Rotaru-Kottmann of Romania and world indoor bronze medallist Spain’s Fatima Diame of Spain and it has all the ingredients of an exceptional competition. The qualification rounds are scheduled for Tuesday 11 June, with the final the following day.
In the absence of Ukraine’s Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk, there will be a new champion in the women’s triple jump. Spain’s Ana Peleteiro-Compaoré looks best placed to seize the crown.
The world indoor bronze medallist and 2019 European indoor champion has a season’s best of 14.75m, giving her a near 40 centimetres cushion on the rest of the field. This will be her first major outdoor competition since returning from maternity leave only last summer and she isn't shy about her ambitions in the Italian capital.
"The European Championship in Rome is coming, and I want gold," she told European Athletics earlier this season. "People always say you come back stronger after pregnancy. I do not know if it is true, but I am happy to be stronger because I could claim another medal at the Olympics."
Türkiye’s European indoor champion Tugba Danişmaz is among a pack of medal contenders that also includes Finland’s Kristiina Mäkelä and Israel’s Hannah Minenko, the silver and bronze medallists from Munich 2022. Though the latter two will need to improve on their current form if they are to make the podium again this time round. At the time of writing, neither athlete has surpassed the 14 metre-line this year.
Qualification gets underway on Friday 7 June, with the final set for Sunday 9 June.
Chris Broadbent for European Athletics