Jazmin Sawyers described a mix of pride and lingering disappointment after taking second place at the inaugural Ultimate Championship, in what she calls the best season of her career following her recovery from a ruptured Achilles.

Jazmin Sawyers capped the finest season of her career when finishing runner-up to Larisa Iaphichino of Italy in the women's long jump at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest on Friday (Sept 11), a display that leaves her with a rare mix of satisfaction and lingering hunger.

The 32-year-old jumped 6.78m (0.9) in the final round to finish behind Iapichino, whose opening-round effort of 6.90m (0.6) proved unbeatable and earned her the $150,000 top prize as Alyssa Jones of the United States took bronze with 6.77m.

The revised, sudden-death format of the new championship created plenty of jeopardy, with only the top six qualifying for a third attempt and just the top four given a fourth. Diamond League champion Monae Nichols was among those to fall victim to it, eliminated after opening with 6.39m and 6.33m.

Sawyers, by contrast, grew into the competition. "I was struggling at the start of the competition but managed to fight when the pressure was on," she said, before producing her best jump of the night with her final attempt to seal second place.

Having made it into the medal positions, though, the competitor in her wanted more. "Once I made it into the event, I realised I actually really wanted to win it and so there is still some disappointment," she admitted. "But when I zoom out and look at the season as a whole, that is a great result – I'm so pleased."

That perspective is easy to understand. Sawyers's silver caps a season in which she has already won Commonwealth Games gold in Glasgow and European silver in Birmingham – comfortably the best of her long career – and comes little more than a year after she feared it might be over altogether.

Rewind to spring 2024 and Sawyers had just ruptured the Achilles tendon in her take-off leg, an injury serious enough to require surgery and rule her out of the Paris Olympics. She spent the Games working as a BBC pundit instead of competing and it would be around 20 months before she jumped competitively again.

The rebuild has paid off spectacularly this year. In Glasgow on August 1, a fourth-round leap of 6.93m earned Sawyers her first global outdoor title, Commonwealth gold ahead of Nigeria's Ruth Usoro. A fortnight later in Birmingham, she added European silver with 6.99m, just one centimetre behind Iapichino once again.

Fittingly, it was in Birmingham that Sawyers first caught wider attention for reasons beyond her jumping. Wrapped in a pink, star-patterned blanket to keep warm between rounds, she became an unlikely viral sensation – and the blanket made a return appearance in Budapest, wrapped around her legs as she waited to compete. What's more, she even painted her nails in the same style with pink and black stars.

Budapest brought a different kind of moment for Sawyers as she reflected on the stage the new championship had provided. "The whole stadium looked pretty impressive, so cool, it was a wow moment for me as an athlete," she said. "I hope it comes across the same to everybody else because it was wonderful to be out there."

There was a lighter note, too, when asked about her share of the $10 million prize pot on offer across the championship, with runners-up in each event collecting $75,000. "With the prize money, I really want to buy a sewing machine," Sawyers said, "but I don't really think I can fit it in my apartment."

For Iapichino, victory came with a heavier emotional weight. The Italian had learned of her grandmother's death only hours before taking to the runway and was in tears as her rivals came to congratulate her once the competition had finished.

Her winning jump, though, showed no sign of the turmoil surrounding it – 6.90m in the first round proved enough to hold off the field, with Iapichino unable to add to it across three further attempts. It continued a superb season for the 24-year-old, who also won European gold in Birmingham last month and had earlier broken her mother Fiona May's long-standing Italian record.

May was born in Britain and grew up in Derby before moving to Italy and winning multiple global medals for her new country.

"I am adding a new title to my family and I'm really happy to win from my first attempt," Iapichino said afterwards. "The whole competition was so cool – having the attention for us long jumpers is always important so the atmosphere was great and the crowd was amazing. I love the pink sand. Can we have it more often?"

The remaining leading positions went to France's Hilary Kpatcha, fourth with 6.73m, and the USA's Claire Bryant, fifth with 6.52m, while world champion Tara Davis-Woodhall's absence – she withdrew following a recent car accident – opened the door for the podium finishers who did make the event.

For Sawyers, the immediate future is less about prize money and sewing machines than continuing to build on a season that has already delivered more than she might have dared hope for during her recovery. As she put it in the build-up to her Commonwealth triumph: "That's the reason I rehabbed a ruptured Achilles – because I want another shot at the Olympics."