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Following its appearance at Sechseläutenplatz in 2025, the women’s high jump competition returns to the sold-out Letzigrund Stadium for Weltklasse Zürich 2026. On 27 August, at least seven of the world’s best high jumpers will go head-to-head, including Nicola Olyslagers, Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Eleanor Patterson, Yuliia Levchenko, Angelina Topić, Maria Żodzik, and Christina Honsel. Among them are two rivals who currently define the discipline like no others.
Olyslagers vs. Mahuchikh: World Champions, Defending Champion vs. World Record Holder
Both athletes are world champions, but what sets them apart makes the high jump showdown at Weltklasse Zürich 2026 particularly compelling. Yaroslava Mahuchikh (UKR) is the Olympic champion from Paris 2024 and holds the world record of 2.10 metres, a mark that has stood in the history books since 2024.
Nicola Olyslagers (AUS) returns as the defending champion of Weltklasse Zürich. She set her Oceania record of 2.04 metres at Weltklasse Zürich in August 2025 on Sechseläutenplatz – Zurich clearly suits her exceptionally well. As the winner of the Wanda Diamond League and recipient of the World Athletics Field Athlete of the Year award, Olyslagers is currently ranked number one in the world. Mahuchikh, however, recently made a strong statement of her own: at the 2026 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Toruń, she won gold in dominant fashion with a clearance of 2.01 metres – a clear sign that the world record holder is back.
A world-class and highly competitive field
Further confirmed for the competition are several outstanding athletes. Eleanor Patterson (AUS), the 2022 world champion and Olympic bronze medallist from Paris, brings her proven championship pedigree to Zurich. Yuliia Levchenko (UKR) shared the silver medal at the 2026 World Indoor Championships in Toruń alongside Olyslagers and Topić. That same Angelina Topić (SRB), only 20 years old, is the discipline’s most exciting young talent: she claimed bronze at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, sharing the medal with Mahuchikh, and secured her first senior global championship podium finish.
Also set to compete at Letzigrund Stadium is Maria Żodzik (POL), who won silver in Tokyo and claimed the first World Championships medal of her career. Christina Honsel (GER), the strongest athlete from the German-speaking region in the field, won her first Wanda Diamond League meeting in Lausanne in 2025. Together, four of the seven athletes account for all four medals awarded in Tokyo 2025: gold, silver, and the shared bronze. And they all have one thing in common: every one of them has already cleared the two-metre barrier.
The stage is therefore set for soaring heights at Letzigrund Stadium.
