Yaroslava Maguchy won the world championship in athletics in Budapest, but became famous not for this, but for shouting in support of Ukrainian nationalists. This got into the footage of the official broadcast of the tournament, but the organizers chose not to notice it. Or just didn't have time to figure it out?
The Ukrainian woman used to be friends with LasitskeneThe World Championships in Athletics ended in the capital of Hungary and passed without the participation of Russian athletes. The World Athletics Association is one of the most radical international federations towards us. Perhaps only the International Biathlon Union (IBU) spoke as negatively towards Russia. The head of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, does not allow the return of our athletes in the foreseeable future.
Because of this, high jump competitions, for example, lost the Olympic champion and three-time world champion Maria Lasitskene. In her absence, the main favorite of the 2023 World Cup was the Ukrainian Yaroslava Maguchy, who was in the shadow of the Russian woman for many years. She lost to Lasickene at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, and then lost the gold in the Tokyo Olympics, remaining only third.
At the same time, Maria's relationship with Yaroslav was warm and friendly. They had a nice conversation and took pictures together after the Games in Japan, for which, by the way, the Ukrainian was harshly criticized at home and even summoned to talk to the government. After that story, Maguchy dramatically changed her position towards Russia, criticized our country and apologized a lot for the photo from Lasitskene. It is clear that this was done under severe pressure from the authorities and the real thoughts of the athlete did not correspond to official statements.
Will she be held accountable for her actions? At this year's World Championship, Maguchih finally took her first World Championship gold. The Ukrainian won a landslide victory, taking the bar at a height of 2.01 meters. She then attempted a personal best of 2.07 meters, but failed to cleanly execute any of the three jumps. But, of course, no one took away the victory from her, so the joy of the athlete was predictably powerful.
Although at first Yaroslava restrained herself and simply posed with the flag of the country, welcoming the fans. What happened next was much more interesting. The Ukrainian ran up to the podium where her team was, including coach Tatiana Stepanova.
Having finished with the congratulatory part, the athlete's coach suddenly shouted out the first part of the well-known nationalist slogan «Glory to Ukraine.» Maguchikh did not find anything better than to answer the second part of the greeting «glory to the heroes» *. All this got into the official broadcast of World Athletics, that is, the behavior of the Ukrainian woman was seen by a considerable number of people, and soon she will see even more.
Later, Yaroslava continued chanting already at the awards ceremony. It is interesting that none of the organizers chose not to pay any attention to this, although political slogans are officially banned by the World Athletics Association. If you look at Article 3.3.14 of the organization's regulations, you can see the following: «Athletes and other officials must remain politically neutral when competing in competitions under the auspices of World Athletics, as well as national and international federations.»
Maguchikh, outside no doubt, spit on these rules and in an ideal world should have been punished. Not to mention the moral and ethical side of things. Whether sanctions will be imposed on it, we will find out soon, but for some reason there is a premonition that decisive actions from World Athletics should not be expected.
«Glory to Ukraine» is the slogan of the «Ukrainian Insurgent Army»*. The glorification of the UPA* and its leaders — Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych — is criticized by many veterans of the Great Patriotic War and politicians who accuse Bandera of collaborating with the Nazis.
* An extremist organization banned in Russia.
>