Before winning her gold medal at the World Indoor Championships, high-jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh had to take a 60-hour car trip to get away from the bombs and rockets that fell on her home country Ukraine. With a resilience and confidence that makes everyone forget that she is only 20 years old, Yaroslava says that she won to protect her country on the athletics track. As part of our “She Moves Us” series, CATch up sat down with Yaroslava to talk about her beginnings in the sport, her emotional victory in Belgrade and her ambitions. Born in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest city, Yaroslava dreamed of a creative profession when she was in school: “I wanted to become an artist, because I painted a lot. I also thought of becoming a singer.” Things changed when she started with track and field, first as a hurdler and later as a high jumper. “I was about 11 when I started. I trained for five years. Then I realized that I wanted to train for the Ukrainian Championship and after that I started competing internationally,” she added. Her teachers weren’t too sure about her career choices and pointed out that she shouldn’t neglect her studies because of her sports. “Those teachers said that athletics was just a hobby and I shouldn’t take it too seriously. But I told them: ‘No, I want to be an athlete. And once I’m done with my career as an athlete, I want to be a coach.’ I told them: ‘I will do this!’,” Yaroslava recalls. Her determination paid off. At 15-years-old, she won the gold at the U18 World Championships in Nairobi, followed by another gold at the U18 European Championships. With her jump of 1.92 meters in Nairobi, she put up the best performance ever by a 15-year-old. “Those teachers changed their minds,” Yaroslava says smiling.