World champion high jumper Nicola Olyslagers: ‘With Jesus, all things are possible’

High jump world champion Nicola Olyslagers has seen her career rising to new heights from the moment God’s love became the centre of her life. 

Like many driven young girls, Nicola Olyslagers had a clear plan for her life from an early age. Aged 8 she was already tall and practising athletics, so, of course, she would become a high jump champion. Her plans were huge. Travel the world, train with the best coaches in Europe, become an Olympian, jump above 2 metres and meet a wonderful man who would love her. They would marry and have high-jumping children. Life was set.

But by the time she turned 20, even though much of the above had happened, she was dissatisfied. 

As the Australian battled her fear of failure and the tension between her identity and her performances grew, she began to ask serious questions. “Who am I outside of sport?” and “am I willing to lay down my sport for something greater?”

Nicola realised that although she loved God, he had only been a side part of her life. She faced a choice between the life she was living and the life God was calling her to live.  

For months, she wrestled with what this meant. Eventually she concluded her career was not fulfilling her, and the life she was living wasn’t producing anything of lasting value. So she decided to “lay down the sport and put it in the hands of God”. She’d assumed his meant giving up athletics altogether and becoming a missionary or full-time church worker. God surprised her by saying he still wanted her to be in the sport… but to do it his way. She soon realised that the message God revealed to her personally, now engraved in her heart, was what she was meant to share with everyone: the importance of knowing your value and worth outside of your performances. 

2025 has been a year like no other for the now 28-year-old, who had already taken silver at the Paris Olympics and won the Indoor World Championships last year. Now, she’s also cleared 2.04 meters, setting a new Australian and continental record. Then, on 21 September, Olyslagers was crowned World Champion at the Tokyo World Athletics Championships.
 
Today she uses her fame and platform to share God’s love with anyone who will listen. In 2018 she founded Everlasting Crowns with her friend, the Australian sprinter and long jumper, Naa Anang. The group gathers athletes for Bible studies and prayer meetings during competitions, while maintaining fellowship year-round through regular online connections. The goal? Not only having faith but “to compete with an eternal perspective.” 

You were 20 when you decided to lay down your athletics career before God. What happened?

When God said, ‘No, I want you to go to sport, but do it my way’ I didn’t know what that would look like. But I found that this message of people knowing their value and their worth outside of their performance was marked, it was like tattooed on my heart.  

At the time I was a 1.88m jumper. I’d never made a world senior team, I wasn’t the best in my nation, barely the best in my state. I wasn’t a promising athlete, but something that was everything to me, I laid into the hands of God and I got so much more in return than I could possibly put into words. Although my value in the world’s eyes wasn’t that big, into God’s eyes, it was immeasurable.

Within a matter of four years I went from 1.88m to 2.02m.

I made my first international team in 2017. I don’t know how I jumped so low and got invited to represent Australia [at the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London], but they let me. And I came dead last at that World Championships. I didn’t clear a single bar, but I couldn’t get the smile off my face, because I knew who I was outside of my performance. And every day when I was in the hotel, I started doing Bible studies and prayer meetings with athletes. And I met a whole community. So, every morning we would gather together. And I was just there, like, “I’m a servant. Use me, Lord, wherever it looks like.” And I have these deep, long-term friendships that are like family from that meeting and from those times in London that have shaped the rest of my career.

I found that when I was dead last, but still serving, I was having the best time. I know that my sport is not competing with my faith, but they’re both advancing and it’s growing. 

I have such a richness of satisfaction in my heart that I never knew was possible. Eight-year-old me could never possibly imagine that I’d be jumping 2.04m while having the joy that I had and not having the fear of losing anything. And I have such a strong desire for people to also experience that. 

It’s lovely to see you jumping, we can see the joy on your face. And we see you speaking, clapping, encouraging yourself. There seems to be a whole conversation happening. What are you saying to yourself? 

Every time I step onto the field and I look at a bar that looks really high, literally it’s an open prayer. And I’m like, “Jesus, you live inside of me. So, even though that bar looks so high, I know with you all things are possible.” And I remind myself, I need to be the best encourager of myself. Because if I’m critical and not encouraging, this body is not going to fly. Of course, there is the shouting “come on!” and encouraging yourself. But most of the times, it is just fighting off fears with the truth that I live by. 

What did you say to yourself specifically before you jumped your record, 2.04m? Do you remember? 

Oh, you know, it’s really hard to remember, but I think… We were studying about when Jesus turned water into wine. Something that was so ordinary got transformed into something of immeasurable quality and value. And I had shared with the athletes that you might feel like you can only bring water today, something that’s ordinary, and serve it. But when his presence is there, when you invite him in, he can transform it. I think I was like, Lord, here’s my water [laughs], I need you to transform my ordinary into something extraordinary. 

How does it work practically in your prayer meetings with athletes before a competition, do you actually pray for success?  

You know, it’s super fun when we have prayer meetings and there’ll be five people from the same race. You can’t all be like ‘Lord, I just pray for a five-way tie today and we all win with a world record’.

I’ve learned that the true reward is not always going to look like gold or doing a personal best. I always pray that wherever I am with my success, that I have the heart to steward the success and use the platform well. So, for me, it’s more about how it’s done than what’s done.

I remember, in Poland, I just lifted my hands and I said: “Lord, I will rejoice today and I will praise you. Even in the midst of these doubts that feel so real and logical. Even if I come last today and I make no height, I just decide in this moment I’m going to praise you regardless.” And then I jumped high, and then I jumped the next height, and the next height. And it was a great competition. But I didn’t look at the result as the success. I looked at that moment of when I decided to overcome that fear. If I value those moments more than gold medals, I think it’s more sustainable. Of course, I’m going to aim to those crazy heights, but at the end, my success isn’t linked to the performance. 

Going back to the prayer meetings and Bible studies between the athletes, how does it work? Do you share about a theme? 

You know, the fun thing with Jesus is that there are no formulas. And life is always an adventure and crazy. We try to meet on meet day. We all introduce each other if we don’t know each other. And we share about what’s God doing in our lives.

Then we’ll open up one passage of scripture and we’ll read it together and we’ll just talk about it. But then, we will apply it to the competition day. So, today’s one was talking about that we are made in the image of God. We are his workmanship and we’re created in advance to do good things with him. And it was talking about how as an instrument, we can be in the hands of being played to do this beautiful melody. It’s not just about the instruments, but about who’s playing, so, talking about him inside of us. And what does that look like when you’re out there tonight? What is God wanting to display in my life tonight? And then as athletes, we come together and pray. And the prayer is beautiful because there are different nationalities, different languages, different cultures, different denominations and we all gather together and we’re under this banner of one name.  

It’s very spontaneous because athletes are spontaneous and track times are different. But we have a community of believers, and there are so many people now. I can’t not do a prayer meeting in every competition I go to, because people say, ”Come on, Nicola!”.

Could you share how God speaks to you, and give us an example of a lesson you’ve learned? 

There’s this Bible verse, 1 Corinthians 13:7. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” I realised with my life that when God was calling me to aim for really higher things like a world record, I didn’t have the belief in order to aim for that, because I looked at me and went, I can’t believe I’m already jumping two meters. I struggled to believe [for more]. And when I read that verse, I realised it wasn’t an unbelief problem. It was actually a love problem, because I thought that when God called me on to aim for higher things, I wanted to love him enough to believe what he says to aim for.

I’m not going to fear disappointment, and I’m not going to fear not reaching it. But I’m going to love him, even in the midst of that fear. Love endures all things. So, rather than going, it’s a strength problem. It’s actually a love problem. And I would just have a simple prayer of love. “Lord, would you fill me with your love today, so that I can do what you’ve called me to.”