Nicola Olyslagers: Why one of Australia's best medal chances at the Paris Olympics will NOT be satisfied if she wins gold

She's a Bible-reading devout Christian who throws her long arms up in prayer before each jump and then, as she regularly says on her Instagram page, jumps with 'joy for Jesus'. 

Clearly, it works for Nicola Olyslagers, who is the first Australian woman to have cleared 2m in the high jump, has a personal best of 2.03m and is ranked second in the world behind Ukrainian Yaroslava Mahuchikh.

The 1.86cm-tall gun from North Gosford on the NSW Central Coast won silver in the high jump at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and wants to do more than go one better at the Paris Games.

Olyslagers says she not only plans to win the gold medal at the Paris Olympics next month, she wants to smash the world record too.

That would require the 27-year-old to top her PB by .07m, meaning she would have to clear the bar by an extra height of, say, a Size D battery or an average golf tee to make 2.10. 

In the world of high jumping, that's a big ask. 

Olyslagers' main rival Mahuchikh cleared 2.06m back in 2021, but the world record of 2.09m that she wants to beat was set way back in 1987 by Stefka Kostadinova of Bulgaria.

What gives Australian Olympic officials hope that Olyslagers can possibly achieve this is part attitude, part self belief.

In April, instead of having a crack at what would have been a national record of 2.04m, the 27-year-old raised the bar to 2.06m.

She came up short on her first attempt, but nearly made it on her second.

'I was thinking, 'How is it possible that it's been 37 years since a woman jumped over 2.09? How long is that?',' Olsylagers said afterwards.

'I recognised that when [Kostadinova] was jumping 2.09, someone else was jumping 2.07 right next to her.

'So if you don't have the luxury of that, you have to do big, bold things that most high jumpers don't want to do.

'I'm just learning how to be outside my comfort zone, pushing myself to do things and not settle for less than my best.

'I don't think I know what my best is, and that excites me.'

The other things that set Olyslagers apart are her loping run-up, her acrobatic training regime and what she calls her 'little book of gold', in which she has become renowned for scribbling at sport meets including the last Olympics.

'This thing's got viral and I didn't quite understand why. But it's my sports training diary and I think that's just like Athletics 101,' she told Nine.

'Just write down what you did for training each day. But I just went one step further and said, okay, but what did I learn and what felt good and what do I need to change?

'The Olympic Games, it was two hours and 45 minutes long. Such a long time to be out there and focused.

'So I had this book full of inspiration as well as these lessons I learned. I could just almost write a letter to myself in the future to say, hey you're at the Olympic Games but remember this and I could look at it.

'So it was like this beautiful moment that I could bring the journal with me in those competitions, and write down exactly what I was feeling in the moment that I can reflect on later.

'Originally I was doing it because I thought no-one else would see it.

'And then the next thing you know your little scribbles are in the headlines. It was never really intended for that.' 

Apart from the statistics, drawings of flowers, plus a score - she gave herself a gave herself '10 out of 10' at Tokyo - the book is also peppered with Bible quotes and religious musings on her sport.

Amid her feelings on the day and data about her health and diet are words such as 'Surrender: it looks like pouring blood sweat and tears for a crown you freely gave away. Yet you partake in the glory of the God who sees'.

Olyslagers' Christian beliefs started getting inextricably wound up with her sporting achievements in her teens, by which time she was already an accomplished athlete. 

When she started competing in athletics events aged seven she found she could win most of them, from shotput to 200m sprints, and then aged eight the high jump, saying later 'even back then I thought I want to jump two metres one day'.

Growing up with Croatian maternal grandparents - who come from the island of Korčula, Croatia, purportedly the birthplace of Marco Polo - one of young Nicola's sporting idols was former Croatian high jump star, Blanka Vlasic.

The joint second-highest female jumper of all time with a personal best of 2.08m, Vlasic competed in her first Olympics in Sydney in 2000 aged 16, and won silver at the 2008 Beijing Games.  

Olyslagers has previously discussed her belief that: 'Croatian genetics gives an advantage to the physique for many sports due to height.

'However, I think the theory can extend also to the Croatian lifestyle being very well acquainted for successful athletes,' she said. 

'We learn to work hard, value family, and honour the community that we're placed in.'

The other belief she believes feeds her sporting success stems from when she was 16 and and attended a youth camp in a big step to becoming an evangelical Christian. 

She changed her professional 'bib' name when she married basketballer and equally devout Christian Rhys Olyslagers in 2022. 

Together they now run Everlasting Crowns, a ministry dedicated to encouraging and teaching athletes.

Her religious preparations were an integral part of preparing for the Tokyo Olympics, where she won the silver in a nail-biting final to become only the second Australian woman to win an Olympic high jump medal.

As she later told Christian media outlet 'Eternity News', missing out on gold did not crush her.

'Building up towards the Olympic Games, I was preparing spiritually just as much as physically,' she said.

'I knew that when I went out there, doubt was going to be so present, as well as the temptation to hide my faith in order to gain sponsors or to hide my joy just in case I missed the bar.

'I was fearless because I knew when I was pursuing the highest thing that I could do in that Olympic Games that even if I didn't make it my identity in Christ meant that I was more than enough.'

Last year she was jointly named with high jumper Brandon Starc Athletics NSW's Athlete of the Year. 

In her run-up to Paris, Olyslagers has spent the season in Europe, competing in June at the Diamond League in Stockholm, and meets in Finland and Czechoslovakia.

She jumps in Paris at the Diamond League on July 7, in the Olympic qualifier on August 2, with the Olympic final taking place on August 4.

Olyslagers own run-up to the high jump bar is something she embraces, rather than dreads, her arms upstretched and thinking of you-know-who.

'The moment right before jumping is such a sweet thing to me,' she posted on Instagram before one competition in 2022.

'It requires a trust that no matter how much training and preparation has been completed, this moment is about surrendering control and trusting. 

'It's the simple faith to believe that what happens next isn't the thing that matters, but the one who is holding you through it all.'

On a grittier note, Olyslagers has also said that high jumping 'has taught me resilience and strength and perseverance in ways that is so unattainable without giving your 100 per cent'.

'But deeper down I just want that 10 out of 10 jump,' she said.

'On the day I broached the 2m barrier in Australia, that's a day. You can't put a dream too high.

'When you clear the bar, there's so much excitement but also control. For a moment you feel like you are flying, and I love that.'