Olyslagers’ iconic diary joins MOWA collection

When the bar was raised to 2.00m in the women’s high jump final at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25, the beaming Nicola Olyslagers raised her hands up to the heavens before running through the rest of her familiar routine.

Not long afterwards, those heavens were to open, bringing a temporary halt to the competition – dampening the runway and the landing bed, and the spirits of the rivals who might have prevented the woman from the Central Coast region of New South Wales from collecting her first world outdoor crown.

Before the rain came down on the Japan National Stadium, though, the tall Olyslagers effectively slayed the opposition with her snappy first-time clearance, adding an ultimately wet world outdoor gold medal to the world indoor gongs she gained under cover in Glasgow in 2024 and in Nanjing in March 2025.

The notebook that travelled the world

While in Tokyo, the 28-year-old Australian kindly donated one of her trademark journal-diaries to the Museum of World Athletics, choosing the most richly illustrated of all her journals, filled with detailed training session reports, technical sketches and more spiritual watercolours. It was not the one in which she scribbled her mark out of ten in the aftermath of what proved to be her winning jump in the Japanese capital, but one from 2022, when she finished fifth in the World Championships final in Oregon.

It took the former Nicola McDermott four world outdoor campaigns to make the podium, which she did when earning bronze in Budapest in 2023. And then a fifth to reach the top in Tokyo.

The athlete from North Gosford has been obliged to dig deep and graft for her success. Nailing that crucial first-time 2.00m effort before the deluge in the Japanese capital highlighted the gold-plated mental armour that she has brought to her high jump game.

‘A different story heading into Tokyo’

It showed that she had learned from the loss she suffered in the rain-lashed Letzigrund Stadium 12 months previously, when Yaroslava Mahuchikh emerged from the cocoon of her umbrella-sheltered sleeping bag to snatch victory from her grasp at the Zurich Weltklasse Diamond League meet.

In doing so, in the wake of Mahuchikh’s Olympic win on countback ahead of Olyslagers in Paris, the young Ukrainian managed to preserve the unbeaten record that she maintained to the conclusion of the 2024 outdoor season.

It was a different story heading into Tokyo last year.

Mahuchikh had to settle for bronze when Olyslagers retained her world indoor crown in Nanjing in March and, despite landing two early Diamond League victories in China against her Australian rival, the world record-holder was unable to gain the upper hand as the 2025 outdoor season progressed.

In six encounters, from June onwards, Olyslagers won five and Mahuchikh just one (taking their running head-to-head career tally to 11-27 in favour of the Ukrainian).

That lone success for Mahuchikh came at the Silesia Diamond League meeting on 15 August, where she cleared 2.00m and Olyslagers 1.97m.

Five days later they met in the rain in Lausanne. Mahuchikh abandoned after misses at 1.81m and 1.91m, while Olyslagers shared victory at 1.91m with Germany’s Christina Honsel and Maria Zodzik of Poland.

Psychologically, it was no small triumph, draining away the rain-drenched memory of that 2024 loss in Zurich – and providing the in-form Olyslagers with a vital edge for the downpour to come in Tokyo.

Joy and resilience

“The joy that’s inside of me can’t get drowned out,” she told the trackside interviewer. “It’s from a source that doesn’t get diluted with circumstances.”

That source, of course, is a deep Christian faith, the cornerstone of Olyslagers’ steadfast, joyful character.

It takes resilience to cope with unfavourable conditions in the heat of a major high jump final.

Dwight Stones might have been a class apart in the men’s event in the 1970s but his zippy approach run was neutralised in the rain in the 1976 Olympic final in Montreal, the Californian slipping to third place with 2.21m – before raising his world record to 2.32m on dry land in Philadelphia just four days later.

For Olyslagers, the psychological lift of winning in the rain in Lausanne was followed by the high of improving her Oceanian record to 2.04m in securing her first Diamond League title on her return to Zurich – not to a rain-drenched Letzigrund Stadion but in the dry of the Sechselautenplatz.

That came in a titanic battle with Mahuchikh, who achieved a joint season’s best of 2.02m. When her outdoor title was on the line in Tokyo, however, the world record-holder was unable to match Olyslagers after the bar was raised to 2.00m, clipping it off with her heels before the rain came and then registering two more failures as she struggled for traction and rhythm through the puddled in-field.

With a best of 1.97m, Mahuchikh had to settle for joint bronze with the 20-year-old Angelina Topic of Serbia, Zodzic taking silver with a second-time clearance at 2.00m after the rain-break.

“This was just pure joy, even in the rain,” the jubilant Olyslagers reflected. “To finish with a very saturated notebook and a gold medal… it's wonderful.

“I was just spending time with Jesus out there. I was like, 'I could be here for hours. The stadium can shut down. I'm in my happy place right now.'"

Up in the Seven Network television commentary box, Bruce McAvaney observed: “It’s been quite a stunning ascension for the smiling high jumper from the Central Coast…last in 2017, dead last with no mark; out in qualifying in 2019; fifth in 2022, third on countback in 2023; and now a world outdoor champion.”

At the World Athletics Awards in Monaco at the end of November, the voice of Australian track and field was honoured for his huge contribution to the sport with the prestigious President’s Award.

And the smiling Olyslagers, a world champion indoors in the dry of Nanjing and outdoors in the damp of Tokyo, was rewarded for her golden deeds in 2025 with the richly-deserved Female Field Event Athlete of the Year Award.

Simon Turnbull for World Athletics Heritage