Due to the Russian war of aggression, Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk has to flee Ukraine. At the European Athletics Championships, the 27-year-old experienced a heartbreaking disappointment in the long jump. The day after, she competes in the triple jump – and wins a very special gold medal.
Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk just wants to scream. But this time not from desperation, from anger, but from joy. 24 hours after the bronze medal was snatched away from her in the last attempt of the long jump final, the Ukrainian is crowned European triple jump champion. Even the 14.81 meters from the first attempt would have been enough for the title, but in the fifth round she lays it again, flying with hop, step and jump to an outstanding 15.02 meters. European annual best, personal best – above all, making amends for the bitter tears she cried the night before.
These are poignant images, which are then captured by the cameras on the backstretch of the Munich Olympic Stadium, where the best triple jumpers on the continent jump out for the gold medal. The 27-year-old already knows when she gets up from the sand in the pit that she has just made a big leap and is waiting spellbound for the result. As the expanse lights up on the scoreboard, emotions erupt from the woman, who always wears a hair accessory in her bun in blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine.
Cheers are followed by leaps of joy, then Bekh-Romanchuk bends over the ditch that separates the complex from the spectator tiers. There is Michailo Romanchuk, the other half of the dream couple in top-class Ukrainian sport. He also bends far forward and gives his wife a big kiss. It is a moving moment in itself, which seems even more valuable when you consider the living conditions of the exceptional athlete and world-class swimmer.
Due to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which has been going on since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and finally escalated with the Russian war of aggression in February 2022, the two top athletes have to flee their home country. “I want to return home after the season,” Bekh-Romanchuk said recently, “I haven’t seen my parents for six months.” And since then she has only seen her husband irregularly, which seems to make the moment together in Munich all the more valuable.
Because while Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk finds a base in Italy to prepare for the season, Mikhailo Romanchuk finds accommodation in Germany. His indoor swimming pool in the Ukraine was destroyed by Russian attacks. He found refuge and support in Magdeburg, with German Olympic champion Florian Wellbrock and national swimming coach Bernd Berkhahn. At the beginning of the week, the two friends duel in Rome, where the European Swimming Championships, which are decoupled from the European Championships, take place. Romanchuk wins gold there in the 1500 meter freestyle on Tuesday this week, after which he travels to the Bavarian capital.
Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk experienced a big disappointment there on Thursday. In the long jump final, Malaika Mihambo’s long-time competitor is long behind the German in third place. In the last attempt, however, the Briton Jazmin Sawyers improves decisively and pushes past. Bekh-Romanchuk’s counterattack fails and her jump is invalidated. Then she collapses in tears. As images of the event roll across the big screens at the stadium, it’s almost impossible not to sympathize with the Ukrainian.
“I jump for my people, for my country,” emphasized the 2018 vice European champion and 2019 vice world champion in the long jump (each behind Mihambo) over the course of the season – a burden, a responsibility that becomes visible in desperation on Thursday evening and on Friday evening in irrepressible joy. In the small Ukrainian group around her husband, who follows the triple jump at close range, the first happy tears flow during the competition.
It’s the emotional highlight of an evening that couldn’t have gone better for the Ukrainian team. While Bekh-Romanchuk leads with 14.80 meters from the first attempt, but has to fear even better jumps from the competition, there are two medals for Ukraine on the track. The European record holder Femke Bol is a Dutch woman who wins the 400 meter hurdles, but silver and bronze go to Viktoriya Tkachuk and Anna Ryzhykova, who, wrapped in national flags, also pass the triple jump facility on their lap of honor.
“It’s the best evening of my life,” says Bekh-Romanchuk afterwards, euphoric. It’s Ukraine’s first gold at this European Championship in Athletics. It was only this season that she began to devote herself to the triple jump, but she surprisingly took silver and mixed up the world’s best at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade at the beginning of March. In Europe, she is now jumping onto the throne by hop, step and jump – and this Friday onto the highest podium at the Olympic Lake, where the atmospheric award ceremonies take place at the European Championships. When the Ukrainian anthem is played there, it should be highly emotional again.
