One month on from World Championships glory, Nicola Olyslagers paints the skirting boards of her Central Coast home thankful she didn’t soar to greater heights as a junior. All the gold in the world would not change the curious high jumper, who won all the gold in the world in 2025.
Be it harnessed by her energy or fascinated by her intricacies, regular occurrences of the extraordinary or unusual have made the Australian box office viewing. Blissfully unique, Olyslagers carves 30 minutes out of her off-season renovations to reflect on a historic year.
“If you get through something like a World Championship win and it doesn’t change you as a person because you know who you are, it gives you even more confidence to go for an Olympic gold or world record, because you know the spotlight isn’t going to crush you,” Olyslagers says.
“Sometimes you think to get to the top of the sport, you need to be born different from day dot or some kind of robot. To do it from a place of love and joy, it almost feels like it didn’t happen in a way.”
A golden year by her own humble admission, Olyslagers won every major title she was eligible for with a clean sweep of triumphs in one of the sport’s most competitive events.
Her World Championships crown in Tokyo was accompanied by a second straight World Indoor gold in Nanjing, a maiden Diamond League Final victory in Zurich, and her sixth consecutive Australian title in Perth.
You name it, she probably won it.
“It wasn’t until World Athletics posted about the Athlete of the Year awards that I kind of processed it all. I never thought I would be nominated for an award like that in my whole life,” Olyslagers says.
“When you realise that you are in the sport not to gain everything but to give what you have, every opportunity becomes exciting moment and not something you have to get through.”
The Diamond Leaue trophy sits neatly on her dining room table and her gold medal is flashed around her grandma’s retirement village, but Olyslagers feels the same joy as her World Championships debut in 2017 – where she failed to clear the opening height.
“High jumpers historically follow that trajectory of being amazing teenagers, so to be able to enjoy the journey and understand my value outside of the sport has almost made me untouchable when I touch the track,” Olyslagers says.
“There are so many athletes who have disqualified themselves by comparing themselves to the people around them, rather than thinking about what they can bring fresh to the sport that no one else can bring.”
When it comes to practicing what you preach, Olyslagers is the benchmark.
Not a competition goes by where her once private notebook escapes the cameras, and more recently a white sheet which she waves like no one is watching, with the dual Olympic silver medallist straying from the sporting narrative of a lifetime sacrificed for a moment.
“People aren’t moved by how high you jump; they are moved by how you do it,” Olyslagers says.
Her fire and flare have captured the imagination of athletics fans around the world, with Olyslagers rising to a new Oceania record of 2.04m this year after becoming the first Australian woman in history to shatter the two-metre barrier in 2021.
The 28-year-old has achieved the feat 12 times since, making crashing out in the qualifying round of the 2014 World Under 20 Championships as a 17-year-old a distant memory:
“This morning when I was painting my skirting boards, I was just thinking that I am so thankful that I wasn’t successful as a junior. I didn’t have the character or ability to know who I was outside of my performance until I was 20 years old.”
“If I was really successful as a junior, I don’t think I would have been able to carry it. I think I would have left the sport and I’m being straight out about that.”
Statistics rarely do justice to the world’s best athletes, but Olyslagers’ record is near flawless.
The world number one has produced personal bests in 15 out of the 16 years she has trained the guidance of Coach Matt Horsnell, beginning at 1.73m in 2010, and has delivered 57 podium finishes from 58 finals since 2020 – excluding 2022 where she battled to stay healthy.
The only blemish? The 2024 Stockholm Diamond League where she was relegated to fourth place on countback.
“I have had to say no to 100 competitions in order to say yes to those 50 where I did get the podium. I really wanted to do the London Diamond this year because I have never done it before, but it didn’t really fit in with the plan that we had set out,” Olyslagers says.
“I thought to myself that if I’m saying no to that opportunity, what am I saying yes to? And what I was saying yes to was being in the best form of my life at the World Championships.”
True to her word, Olyslagers toppled world record holder and Olympic champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine and a host of other contenders including teammate Eleanor Patterson, etching her name into history alongside the likes of Catherine Freeman and Sally Pearson as the eighth Australian woman to be crowned world champion.
“If I stayed in the sport until I was satisfied, 2018 would have been the end when I got a Commonwealth Games bronze medal. Now that personal best [1.91m] is my starting height which is insane,” Olyslagers says.
“Every day I’m discovering that my body is able to do a lot more than what I thought was possible. I don’t think the world record of 2.10m is the ceiling for women’s high jump in general, I really think that we are going higher. I just hope that I’m there.”
Despite all the fanfare and spotlight, Olyslagers started her 2026 preparations last week the same way that the last 16 years have started – gym sessions in her coach’s garage and beach sprints on the Central Coast.
What comes next is yet to be written:
“If you don’t aim for the world record, you won’t get the next centimetre.”
By Lachlan Moorhouse, Australian Athletics
Posted 27/10/2025
