Reigning European Athlete of the Year Yaroslava Mahuchikh will start as the prohibitive favourite to take her third successive high jump title at this year’s Apeldoorn 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships which start on Thursday (6).
The Ukrainian will be looking to repeat her successes in Torun and Istanbul when she takes on her European rivals in the Dutch town of Apeldoorn but has her sights set higher than just standing on top of the podium.
“Yes, of course, I want more records,” she told European Athletics ahead of receiving her Athlete of the Year accolade last October and was not referring just to improving her world record of 2.10m set in Paris last July.
The European indoor best – with the introduction of short track records indoor marks are no longer considered separately for the indoor field events – stands at 2.08m to Sweden’s Kajsa Bergqvist from 2006 while the championship record is 2.05m to Belgium’s Tia Hellebaut from 2007.
The latter will, coincidently, be watching from the sidelines in Apeldoorn in her role as a European Athletics Council member while the former will also be in the Dutch city in as role as head coach of the Swedish team.
Mahuchikh’s season’s best stands at 2.01m which, while being the world lead, is a little way adrift of Bergqvist and Hellebaut’s marks. However, anyone who saw her have two good attempts at 2.04m when winning her most recent outing in the famed Slovakian meeting Banska Bystrica would not bet against her flying high in Apeldoorn.
Should Mahuchikh win her third consecutive title, it would only be the second time it has been achieved in the women’s high jump with the East German legend and straddle jumper Rosi Ackermann – the first woman to clear 2.00m – winning three titles from 1974-76, an era when the championships were held annually.
In the unlikely event that Mahuchikh does succumb to her first defeat in more than a year, then the most obvious candidate to profit is Angelina Topic.
The prodigious Serbian, who is still only 19, cleared 1.96m for second place in Banska Bystrica, only two centimetres away from her national record set last year.
If Mahuchikh is the clear favourite for her event in Apeldoorn, it would be a brave person who would state definitively who will win the women’s shot put title.
Olympic champion vs. European champion for shot put gold
Germany’s Paris 2024 Olympic champion Yemisi Ogunleye, who made her big breakthrough when she took a surprise world indoor silver 12 months ago, has been in fine form in the past six weeks, winning five of her six 2025 outings.
Notably, when winning her national indoor title in Dortmund just over a week ago, Ogunleye improved her personal best to a European-leading 20.27m.
However, the Netherlands’ Jessica Schilder, who beat Ogunleye to defend her 2024 European title in Rome last summer, has been equally impressive. Schilder will also have home advantage, with the majority of the spectators in the Omnisport Apeldoorn undoubtably rooting for her.
She recently won the 2025 Dutch indoor title in the venue for this year’s European Athletics Indoor Championships with 20.19m. Three of Schilder's seven Dutch records have also been set there, including a Dutch indoor best of 20.31m last year.
Portugal’s two-time defending champion Auriol Dongmo will be in Apeldoorn but on the comeback from a broken leg which saw her miss the majority of the 2024 season, it would be a surprise if the Portuguese thrower challenges the two reigning major outdoor champions at this early juncture of her comeback.
However, she could still be battling for a place on the podium with her compatriot Jessica Inchude, who beat Dongmo to the Portuguese title with a personal best of 19.18m recently along with German number two Katharina Maisch, who improved her own best to 19.10m when finishing behind Ogunleye in Dortmund.
Can Mihambo break her European indoor curse in Apeldoorn?
Germany also has big hopes of gold in the long jump with the charismatic and popular Malaika Mihambo leading the world list as the only women to have gone over seven metres this year, equalling her indoor best when jumping 7.07m on home soil in Karlsruhe early last month.
But despite having won Olympic, world and European titles outdoors, a major indoor gold medal is still missing from Mihambo’s collection.
Her only defeat of the 2019 season came at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow where she finished fourth; she was shunted from gold into silver in the sixth round by Ukraine's Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk in 2021; and she finished fourth again two years ago in Istanbul in a competition won by Great Britain's Jazmin Sawyers.
Sadly, Sawyers is not able to defend her title as she is on the comeback trail after rupturing an Achilles tendon in April 2024 and has only just returned to training.
Leading the list as the best of the rest who will be in Apeldoorn is Italy’s Larissa Iapichino, who jumped her personal best of 6.97m when taking the silver in Istanbul behind Sawyers two years ago. The Roma 2024 silver medallist behind Mihambo has already jumped 6.86m this year.
Perhaps better known for her exploits in the combined events, also watch out for Switzerland's Annik Kalin who has jumped 6.77m this year.
Moser in pole position with Caudery absent
Great Britain’s Molly Caudery leads the 2025 European list with 4.85m that she jumped in Madrid on Friday, but has subsequently decided not to travel to Apeldoorn, which leaves the door open for Switzerland’s reigning European champion and 2021 European indoor gold medallist Angelica Moser to add to her collection of continental accolades.
Moser is also rounding into form at the right time and now leads the entries with the 4.76m which she cleared to win at the All-Star Perche in Clermont-Ferrand, France last Friday.
France's reigning European U23 champion Marie-Julie Bonnin recently cleared a lifetime best of 4.71m; Roberta Bruni, who went over an Italian indoor best of 4.70m in Clermont-Ferrand; and Slovenia's two-time silver medallist Tina Sutej should also be involved in what could be an intriguing battle for the medals.
Reigning European outdoor champion Ana Peleteiro-Compaoré has been the shining light in what has otherwise been a slightly lacklustre year for the triple jump, the Spaniard leading the European lists with the 14.33m she jumped at the Spanish Indoor Championships.
In Apeldoorn, Peleteiro-Compaoré will be looking to regain the continental indoor title she won back in Glasgow 2019, missing Istanbul due to having given birth to her daughter just a few months before.
Another five women who will be in Apeldoorn have gone over 14 metres in the last eight weeks.
At the top of this group list is Finland’s Senni Salminen who jumped 14.07m at her first competition of the year in January but who has not been over 14 metres since.
Türkiye's Tugba Danismaz, who achieved a hugely emotional victory in Istanbul two years ago in the wake of the devastating earthquake in the country, will defend her title but has been a long way from 14-metre form this winter.
Phil Minshull for European Athletics