Twelve years after his official Olympic debut, Paulissen qualified for his fourth Belgian squad, as a 32-year-old and a cycling team captain, in the men's cross-country race at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing by receiving one of the nation's three available berths for his team from the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), based on his top-ten performance at the World Cup series, World Championships, and Mountain Biking World Series. He successfully completed a 4.8-km sturdy, treacherous cross-country course with a nineteenth-place effort in 2:03:30, radically shortening his chances to climb the Olympic podium on his fourth bid.