World champion Nicola Olyslagers’s emotional strength crucial to avoiding post-Olympics lull

Nicola Olyslagers jokes she and her husband Rhys are living the “Australian dream.”

However, it is not a simplistic comment of the silver medalist of the Paris Olympic Games, since it proves the changes in the daily lifestyle, such as the property of households and pets, with the help of maintaining his love for the height jump.

“My husband and I got married just after Tokyo’s Olympic Games and we are waiting for our lives to perform the best they can in Paris,” Olyslagers told ABC Sport.

“After that ended, we were like, ‘oh, what now?’

“So we continue that route … now we have a house and we have a puppy. We made the type of Australian dream.

“But I discovered that that also brought a lot of strength because it did not affect my training.

“He really drove me to love training because that was my consistency. I could come back.

“Although my life is changing so much, the weights do not change. I still know what it feels like to raise 80 kilograms on my head.”

Olympic athletes are prone to experience a calm after games, where motivation can be missing after committing to a four -year cycle focused only on achieving a goal.

Olyslagers was aware of avoiding this trap after claiming money for the second consecutive Olympic Games in Paris last year.

And he could not have asked for a better start in his 2025 season after the successful defense of his high jump gold in the World Athletics Interior Championships in Nanjing three weeks ago.

“I think that with good rest and making those correct decisions and changes, it can renew it,” said Olyslagers, who is competing in the Australian athletics championship in Perth on Sunday.

“It can bring a different type of strength.”

According to Olyslagers, rest prioritization is crucial to the emotional well -being of an athlete.

“The rest is so important and communicates with the people around you, in addition to finding people who value you as a person out of you as a athlete,” he said.

Olyslagers out of the ‘comfort zone’

Olyslagers arrived in Perth for the national titles promoted by their triumph in Nanjing.

He won the gold ahead of his Australian partner Eleanor Patterson in the countdown after both cleared 1.97 meters.

They ended in front of the Ukraine Olympic champion, Yaroslava Mahuchikh, who left the final at 1.95m to collect the bronze.

“I entered there and I just wanted to give me the ability to do something surprising, do something new, which was to open a season in an international circuit and do it well,” said Olyslagers.

“I think that really brought a freshness to my preparation, to be out of my comfort zone, and so to get the gold medal, I was delighted.

“I thought I would have to do something out of this world to do it. But as I was with the moment and how the competition was, I am very satisfied with my performance.”

Olyslagers will face Patterson again in Perth while they continue his healthy rivalry.

Patterson shared bronze with Iryna Gerashchenko Ukrainian at the Paris Olympic Games and won gold in the World Athletics Championship of 2022 held in Eugene.

She was the silver medalist behind Mahuchikh in the world titles of Budapest in 2023, with Olyslagers taking home the bronze.

The best of Patterson’s 2.02m is 1 centimeter of less than the National Record of Olyslagers and its frontal meeting will be the highlight of the weekend event program in Perth.

Olyslagers is not presenting any expectation about his performance, choosing in his place look towards his outdoor campaign abroad.

She will compete in the Chinese leg of the Diamond League circuit in the Xiamen (April 26) and Shanghai/Keqiao (May 3) meets, but it is not sure how its European schedule is seen at this stage.

All roads lead to the World Athletics Championship in September in Tokyo, where Olyslagers is determined to add gold outdoors to his victory inside.

“The objective of reaching its maximum point in this (World Athletics Interior Championships),” said Olyslagers.

“My true goal is Japan this year, so it was only a glorified season of season with a golden end.”