BUDAPEST, Hungary — After finishing ninth at last year’s World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, the fifth place this time around felt like a medal for Jamaica’s national record holder Lamara Distin. She cleared 1.94m in the women’s high jump final at the National Athletics Centre on Sunday and was just shy of her season best 1.95m.

Distin failed at 1.97m, which would have equalled her national record, but the valiant jumper, who fought through adversity this season, was happy.

“It feels great. Last year I finished ninth and this year fifth. That’s really a great accomplishment, and I can’t thank God enough because He’s the one that brought me here. So first and foremost I have to thank Him and I’m just really grateful to be here, and to place fifth, that is just great,” she said.

Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh won with 2.01m, dethroning Australia’s Eleanor Patterson who took silver with a season’s best 1.99m. Patterson’s teammate Nicola Olyslagers took the bronze, also with 1.99m.

Distin got off to a good start and was clear through the first three heights, needing only one attempt to get over 1.85m, 1.90m, and 1.94m, but stalled thereafter.

The jumper, who graded her season “a nine out of 10”, admitted that she was comfortable in the early goings when she was in medal contention.

“When the bar got higher, my approach started changing, so I feel like I just gotta go back to the drawing board, fix some things, and come back next year.”

Distin said she felt that if she had got over 1.97m her medal chase would have been well and truly on.

“I’d be in medal contention had I gotten over on my first attempt. That would’ve put me in the middle of the medal race,” she said.

“I’m just speechless right now, because I’m just grateful for the season and now I’m done,” Distin added.