The Australian is pushing herself to new heights as she prepares for a tilt at Olympic glory in Paris – and personal fulfilment
Nicola Olyslagers with her ticket to Paris during the Australian 2024 Paris Olympic Games Athletics Squad Announcement at SA Athletics Stadium on April 14, 2024 in Adelaide, Australia.Nicola Olyslagers with her ticket to Paris during the Australian 2024 Paris Olympic Games Athletics Squad Announcement at SA Athletics Stadium on April 14, 2024 in Adelaide, Australia.
Olyslagers reflected with her team, and realised that in those crunch moments, she needed to go higher, to push herself to the limit. “When you attempt a personal best, you just have some extra focus, some extra strength, and you really go for it,” she says. “So my plan was always that, if I won, I would go from 2.01m to 2.06m, to get myself into that mindset. I’m trying to push myself. If I back out of doing something big, I’ll miss out.
It is a technique Olyslagers has continued in subsequent years, recalibrating the scale as she has continued to improve. Her recent personal best-breaking 2.03m warranted a 10 out of 10, but she says that “what would have been a 10/10 jump for me at the Tokyo Olympics maybe isn’t a 10/10 jump anymore”.
“My faith and Jesus is the reason I’m in sport,” says Olyslagers. “I would not have made it here, and been able to navigate the highs and lows, without faith as my anchor. In sport, when you’re doing well, everyone wants to know, everyone loves you. When you don’t do well, everyone starts blaming you. It can be super challenging and lonely as an athlete.”Prior to 2017, Olyslagers’ identity was wrapped up in sport.
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