Jumping for joy: Olyslagers and her Brisbane vision

Ian Chadband | January 9, 2026

The journals which Nicola Olyslagers scribbles in feverishly at trackside are considered such sporting tablets of stone that one of them’s already a treasure in the Museum of World Athletics.

More than just a detailed technical training tool for one of Australia’s all-time great athletes, featuring her feedback on every jump, these tomes also act as her inspiration, full of her innermost feelings about her place in the high jumping universe.

So when she smiles to AAP she’s been thinking about a new journal entry, featuring her reflections on the possibility of competing in Australia’s Olympics six years hence and enjoying a “Hollywood” ending to her career at age 35, she has our full attention.

“You know, I haven’t written about it in my journal yet, but it’s been in my mind. I have thought about, sort of like, ‘Brisbane, 2032, big question mark, August 7’. Something like that in my sports journal, but we haven’t figured out the game plan yet,” she explains.

“I remember thinking years ago, ‘okay, after Los Angeles 2028 that would be a good time to retire’. And then the Brisbane Olympics got announced, and I’m like, ‘a home Olympics? I’d be 35? That’s do-able’.

“I’ve had talks to my friends that wouldn’t it just be amazing to win four medals at four Olympics. I don’t aim for the medals, because then you don’t get them.

“But that picture just stays in my mind of just how amazing it would be to not only be competing at a home Olympics, but being competitive and really still be in some of my best shape in 2032. 

“It’s getting closer, so I would love that, but of course I know that a lot can happen in seven years. But maybe it’s a bit of my Hollywood thing of ‘imagine getting a home Olympics and jumping a world record there, like that would just be crazy. But anything is possible’.”

Why shouldn’t she daydream? Olyslagers was talking in Monaco, still incredulous about her incredible double world championship-winning 2025 in an end-of-year awards binge which saw her collect World Athletics woman field eventer, NSW Sport Athlete of the Year and Australia’s female athlete of the year gongs.

2026 promises even more after her best season yet, capped by her memorable world title win in Tokyo. 

“There’s so many big carrots to go for,” she muses, pondering the defence of her world indoor crown in Torun, Poland, a first Commonwealth Games gold in Glasgow and World Athletics’ new ‘Ultimate Championships’ title in Budapest. 

“I believe I can do them all. Comm Games gold I’ve never won. We’re not aiming for titles now, but when we’re thinking ‘okay, what’s left on the bucket list?’, that’s still a big one,” says Olyslagers.

Yet while her incredible consistency and continual improvement at the top level – she’s podiumed in her last 14 competitions and medalled at her last five global championships – means she could clean up again this year, winning is still secondary for one of sport’s true Corinthians, a remarkable throwback who really does jump for joy.

As happy to cheer her opponents to victory as win herself, her dream is not to break the world record of 2.10m, currently held by her Ukrainian friend Yaroslava Mahuchikh, but to see a whole host of women improve on that mark.

“I’d love to be attempting a world record one day; 2.04 wasn’t on my radar years ago, but now I’m thinking, ‘wow, how do we get here?'” says Olyslagers, who cleared her Australian record in the Zurich Diamond League final last August.

“But as far as an ambition for the sport, years ago I really just wanted to create a culture where, in the high jump world, the competitors were also great supporters of each other.”

And now as world no.1, she feels extra responsibility. “Leaders have to be servants, and my hope is you’ll see athletes who are just enjoying themselves, maybe writing down notes in their notebooks — I see a few of them now! — having fun whilst competing at a very, very high elite level in what’s just a great community. 

“Competing with just a love that goes past just jumping over a bar.”

Olyslagers may, in her mind’s eye, have pictured that world record jump coming at her home Olympics, but ask her if achieving what Australia might see as the ultimate home triumph would mean more to her than, say, finishing fifth at some minor rain-hit track meet in Europe, she smiles: “Deep down, it’s the same.

“The measure of my joy is not in my success, it’s in my willingness to go and put 100 per cent of myself out there. Because I know that the bar height doesn’t define who I am. I know my identity, and I know that gold medal can’t add or take away the value that I have.”