Credit: Twitter
The World Athletics Championships 2023 taking place in Budapest has delivered many exciting and memorable moments as American sprinter Noah Lyles won three titles at the event while Katie Moon (USA) and Nina Kennedy (Australia) agreed to share the gold in women's pole vault. However, one name that has been raising eyebrows at the event is Yuliya Levchenko, a Ukrainian high jumper.
Yuliya went viral on Friday, August 25 as the video of one of her jumps during the qualification went viral on social media. The World Athletics' official TikTok account shared a video of Yuliya's jump and captioned, " High jump Barbie, Ukraine’s Yuliya Levchenko, " with a sped-up version of Dua Lipa’s “Dance The Night” from the Barbie soundtrack. The World Atheltics' social media account compared the blonde Ukrainian high jumper with 'Barbie' a recently-released Hollywood movie starring Margot Robbie.
Watch the video here:
Since the 2019 European Indoor Championships, the 2017 World Championships silver medalist hasn’t won an international medal. In this year's championships, Levchenko failed to qualify for the 12-woman final. After her loss, Yuliya took to her Instagram handle and posted a heartfelt message along with her pictures from the event. She wrote, "Well, don't like athletes defeats :) how not to spin. A reminder that everyone competing, who has made it to the Worlds or still dreaming of being, everyone is doing their part to fight for the top spot."
Yuliya added, "No one wants to be average, everyone is looking up ☝🏼 to their best results and highest hopes. This is motivating to get up in the morning. But I also believe that not all plans are subject to our understanding. And if something doesn't go according to the plan we imagined, maybe life has prepared something else for us."
The 25-year-old Ukrainian concluded by congratulating her fellow athletes who qualified for the finals and thanked her loved ones and fans for supporting her in the event.
