Nicola Olyslagers: I knew I had to do things outside my comfort zone

Nicola Olyslagers defended her world indoor high jump title in Nanjing after taking gold with 1.97m, leaving behind her compatriot from Australia, Eleanor Patterson, and world record holder Yaroslava Mahuchikh (Ukraine).

“This is the first time I’ve come from a gold medal position to try to defend something outside of Australia. I knew that if I wanted to jump as high and be as competitive as I wanted to be, I had to do things outside of my normal comfort zone. I had to do something new, like start a world championship as my first competition of the season”, said Nicola Olyslagers. “I was really inspired by Yaroslava’s attempts to set a world record last year and how she changed her run. So today I jumped with a new run. I want to jump as high as Yaroslava – if I want to be competitive, I have to try and change things”, added the two-time world indoor high jump champion.

Nicola Olyslagers won the silver medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paris 2024 Olympics and the bronze medal at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in the high jump. She is the current high jump Oceanian record holder, and the world champion at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships.