Moesha Johnson Savors ‘Really Special’ Open Water Win with Sister in Attendance
Before Moesha Johnson locked in for the open water race at the Pan Pacific Championships, she did a quick scan of the shore at the Long Beach Marine Stadium.
The Australian Olympian caught sight of who she was hoping to see: Her sister, Indiana, who thought might be there to surprise her. Johnson’s youngest sister was staying with an aunt and cousin in the Los Angeles area, and Moesha hoped the schedule might coincide with the big championship meet of the summer for her to stop by.
The pre-race moment wouldn’t be the last time that Moesha and Indiana locked eyes before Johnson crossed the line in first place. Indiana ran three sides of the course for the full 10 kilometers, waving an Australian flag to cheer on her sister. Moesha clocked the effort on dry land as she pulled away from the field to win gold by a margin of 26 seconds.
The rarity made it more special for both sisters. Indiana had never seen Moesha race outside of Australia. Johnson has won races all over the world, but training and racing is a lonely and expensive endeavor. Having her sister there made this one more special than the medal and the caliber of the competition may suggest.
“In terms of an experience, it’d be up there with some of the best,” Johnson said during the swim competition at the Woollett Aquatic Center in Irvine. “It’s something that some people are really lucky to have family there for every win that they have. I don’t. I have a team around me.
“That’s great, and I always call my mum. But to have (Indiana) there, experiencing the emotions with me, it was definitely up there with some of my more important medals in terms of results.”
Johnson hails from Tweed Heads, on the border of New South Wales and Queensland, 100 kilometers down the coast from Brisbane. Indiana, the youngest of three, still calls Australia home.
Moesha has been training in Germany, with the distance group led by Bernd Berkhahn and based in Magdeburg. The group includes men’s Pan Pacs winner Florian Welbrock and new men’s 1,500 freestyle world record holder Johannes Liebmann.
It had been months since Johnson had seen her sister and years since seeing her LA-based family. She hoped they’d be at Pan Pacs, but she wasn’t sure it was possible until race day.
“When I saw them, it was a shock,” Johnson said. “It really gave me motivation and inspiration in that race to yeah to do it for someone more than myself.”
Family at races has been few and far between for Johnson. She reckons her dad has only seen her swim three times in her pro career. They went to Budapest in 2022 and Fukuoka in 2023 for World Championships. But with the slew of World Cups and other races Johnson has won, it’s usually just coaches and teammates waiting for her.
Having Indiana there at the finish line in Long Beach – even an exhausted, out-of-breath version – was special.
“She walked every single lap alongside me in that 10k, holding the flag,” Johnson said. “Even from lap one, she was jumping up and down on the side. I’m like, how did you last that 10k? That was really, really special to me.”
Johnson, who added a bronze in the 1,500 free in Irvine, has been on a great run of form. The 28-year-old finished fourth at Worlds in 2022 in the 1,500 to go with ninth in open water. She was ninth in the longest pool event a year later in Fukuoka.
At the Paris Olympics in 2024, she won a silver medal in the marathon swim, then a year later grabbed gold in the 5K and 10K at Worlds in Singapore. She also made the Olympic final in the 1,500 in Paris, finishing sixth. She’s established herself as one of the marathon swimmers to beat for this Olympic quad as she builds to Los Angeles in two summers.
It’s part of the reason why she was nervous for the race at Pan Pacs despite being the clear favorite on paper.
“With a venue like that, when you’re so close to the crowd, it was really engaging, and I could see her holding this really big flag and running down the side,” she said. “I thought about it every lap. You can’t not see her running. So in a 10k in the middle, around that 5 to 7k is always really hard mentally, and so to have people there, my sister, my family, my teammates, it’s always really helpful.”
Johnson’s main takeaway from the experience is the egalitarianism of open water. There’s a fight on to make sure the 10K is part of the program in Brisbane in 2032. In a country where the vast majority of residents live on the coast, ocean swimming is less a sport than part of everyday life. As Johnson grows into the sport, open water is less a cordoned off section of competition than it is a chance for anyone to roll up and see the sport up close.
“I think that shows what open water is about,” Johnson said. “She hasn’t been able to come to the pool swimming because tickets sell out and ticket prices, but open water gave her the opportunity to come see me racing.”
