FROM PROTEST TO PODIUM: MARYIA ZODZIK’S JOURNEY

Maryia Zodzik, a Belarusian high jumper and participant in the 2020 peaceful protests against dictatorship and violence, has made history on the world stage.

Now liv­ing in forced exile, she rep­re­sents Poland and brought home the sil­ver medal from the World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships in Tokyo. This is a first-ever medal for a Belaru­sian high jumper in any glob­al com­pe­ti­tion.

After flee­ing repres­sion in Belarus, Maryia faced immense chal­lenges, includ­ing work­ing at McDonald’s in Poland just to get by. Thanks to sup­port abroad, she returned to pro­fes­sion­al ath­let­ics, trained hard, and achieved a per­son­al mile­stone by clear­ing 2 meters — only nar­row­ly los­ing to the cham­pi­on in addi­tion­al attempts.

Maryia has nev­er shied away from speak­ing up. She signed a let­ter sup­port­ing the Belaru­sian peo­ple in 2020 and pub­licly con­demned Russ­ian aggres­sion against Ukraine in 2022. Her medal sym­bol­izes more than per­son­al tri­umph: it reflects the courage of Belaru­sian ath­letes forced to leave their home­land to pur­sue free­dom and suc­cess under a new flag.