Yaroslava Mahuchikh returned to her customary heights to win the first final of the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze 26 after an extraordinary women’s high jump competition which finished with three joint silver medallists.

The 24-year-old Ukrainian, who had to settle for world indoor and outdoor bronze last year, was the last to join the action with a first-time clearance of 1.93m – and the last to leave it as she followed a decisive first-time success at 2.01m with three unsuccessful attempts at a championship record of 2.06m.

The Olympic champion thus regained the title she won in Belgrade four years ago after overcoming an enduring, high-class challenge from Australia’s defending champion and world outdoor gold medallist Nicola Olyslagers, Serbia’s 20-year-old world bronze medallist Angelina Topic and Mahuchikh’s 28-year-old team-mate Yuliia Levchenko.

All four women remained in the joint lead after first-time clearances at 1.96m and, impressively, 1.99m.

As the bar moved up to 2.01m, the question was: who will crack first? Mahuchikh was the first to attempt it and she glided over before rising with arms upraised and a smile that had been largely absent during the previous year.

Today, in the same arena where she won the European indoor title as a 19-year-old, Mahuchikh was never going to be deterred from the top step of the podium, buoyed by a change in her winter training routine whereby, for the first time since war arrived in her country in February 2022, she remained in her home city of Dnipro.

She looked a more relaxed athlete in the opening session of these championships, and her destiny seemed clear after she had the confidence to join the party late and in impeccable style.

The year of 2025, which began to go awry with an ankle injury after she had won a third European indoor title, was firmly filed away.

Having won gold, she sought to break the longest standing championship record, a clearance of 2.05m made in 1987 by Bulgaria’s Stefka Kostadinova, whose world record of 2.09m set in the same year Mahuchikh eclipsed with a clearance of 2.10m in 2024.

She was not put out to have missed it. She is back in the box seat – and her smile is back again.

"Before Torun, I had already collected the full set of world indoor medals but, coming here, I realised how I'm hungry for the gold one,” Mahuchikh said.

“I started my successful senior career in this arena in 2021 but today I had a different feeling. Torun is the city where many Ukrainians moved after the war was started in our country but I was really surprised how many fans came here to support me.

“It was amazing. They gave me a lot of energy and motivation to raise the bar higher even though I'd already won the gold."

The rare sight of a three-way tie in these championships had occurred in 2012, when there were also three silver medallists in the women’s high jump, and in 2004, when three men claimed bronze in the high jump.

Olyslagers, seeking what would have been a unique achievement of a consecutive hat-trick of titles, competed with characteristic joy and grace with four consecutive perfect clearances from 1.89m.

"The competition was amazing,” Olyslagers said. “I cannot remember the last time we had something like that, with four girls clearing 1.99m on their first attempt.

“But being in a situation like this gives me a sense of excitement, it does not scare me. It reminds me to have motivation to jump well. Sometimes, you just wake up and do not feel ready to compete. Today was one of those days but I just prayed and was able to make myself feel the right way. Clearing 1.99m was probably a bigger surprise to me than to anyone else and it feels great to share this medal with two other girls.”

Topic was the only jumper apart from Mahuchikh to have jumped 2.00m this season, achieving that national record on 24 February. Her dynamic challenge yielded her another big world medal and augurs well for the next stage of what will surely be a stellar career.

“It was a pretty hard competition today,” Topic said. “I don't remember a competition at this level being so high, a competition where you had to clear 1.99m at the first attempt in order to win a medal. It was a crazy competition.

“This is my second time sharing a medal after sharing a bronze in Tokyo. I came to Torun hoping to be on the podium and I wanted to jump 1.99m.”

For the 28-year-old Levchenko, who earned world silver at the 2017 World Athletics Championships, this was a return to old levels, and she was supported all the way by her glorious teammate, who embraced her when her final failure confirmed victory.

The pressure of home expectations appeared to tell on Poland’s Maria Zodzik, surprise world silver medallist in Tokyo last year, as she was unable to progress beyond 1.93m and finished fifth.

On the same height, Sweden’s Louise Ekman finished sixth and Australia’s 2022 world champion Eleanor Patterson finished seventh.

Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics