Ukraine’s high jump superstar and 2022 European champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh will return to the Banskobystrická latka, the famed indoor high jump meeting in the Slovak town of Banska Bystrica on 14 February.
Mahuchikh, 21, has competed there for the last four years at what is now a World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver meeting, winning in both 2020 and 2021.
Two years ago, she memorably cleared a meeting record of 2.06m, which moved her up to equal-third on the indoor all- time list, a mark which also remains her personal best although she leapt a world-leading 2.05m outdoors at the Brussels Diamond League meeting last September.
The announcement by the Banskobystrická latka meeting organisers comes hard on the heels of Mahuchikh making an impressive 2023 debut on Saturday when she showed fine and cleared 2.00m in Lviv, before going close at 2.03m.
Yaroslava Mahuchikh ???????? opens her account for 2023 with a 2.00m clearance in Lviv. ????
— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) January 16, 2023
The best from another busy weekend of indoor action!
Not surprisingly, there are high hopes that Mahuchikh can attack so big heights in just under a month’s time en route to the Istanbul 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships.
Mahuchikh, who is also the reigning world indoor champion, will face her friend and 2022 World Athletics Championships gold medallist Eleanor Patterson, from Australia.
In fact, the top four from the women’s high jump in Eugene last summer will be in Banska Bystrica’s Dukla Military Sports Centre with Italy’s Elena Vallortigara and Ukraine’s Iryna Gerashchenko, third and fourth respectively at the World Athletics Championships, also announced on Wednesday along with Ukraine’s 2017 world championships silver medallist Yuliya Levchenko.
Further information about the World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver and Bronze meetings can be found here while the meeting website can be found here.
In addition to a local live stream of the event via the meeting website, a live stream of both the men's and women's competitions with English-language commentary will be available via the European Athletics YouTube channel.