Bubka is the world's best pole vaulter of all time with an Olympic gold, six World Championship golds and 35 world records, which means that Armand Duplantis has a huge task ahead of him if he is to become the master of the pole vault steppe.
A couple of weeks ago, 59-year-old Bubka was inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame.
"It's very strange, because I'm very proud of Bubka as an athlete, because he set a lot of world records. But I don't like him as a person, because at the beginning of the war he didn't take sides. For all of us athletes: Bubka doesn't exist for us now," Mahuchikh, 22, told NRK.
Bubka under investigation for oil deal
Last summer, the website wrote Bihus.info that Bubka through the company Mont Blanc allegedly sold fuel services to Russian actors in the Donbas area. The information has led to an investigation in Ukraine.
"It seems terrible, because he was the chairman of the Olympic Committee (in Ukraine) for a long time. But he has made his choices," Mahuchikh said of the matter.
Bubka, who many Ukrainians think keeps too low a profile, denies the allegations and thinks he is the victim of a smear campaign.
"I was born on Ukrainian soil and have always represented Ukraine with great pride in the world," Bubka, born in Russian-occupied Donetsk, said in a defense speech on his YouTube channel.
Mahuchkh is based in Brussels but is now in his hometown of Dnipro for a couple of weeks to visit family and friends. On the same day that her parents were to travel to Budapest to follow her path to the World Cup gold, both the train and bus station in the city were bombed.