FIFO Dolphin #827 is ready for boarding!

First she booked her open water 10km Olympic ticket in Doha at the February World Championships and then Moesha Johnson added an exclamation point to her 2024 Paris Games by sealing a 1500m spot in the pool at the Australian Selection Trials in Brisbane.

All this while commuting from her German training base.

The 1500m specialist, who has based herself in Germany to train alongside the dominant German open water swimmers including Florian Wellbrock, has enjoyed an exceptional 12 months of results.

But it was in the choppy waters of Port Doha (Qatar) that the 26-year-old emerged bruised and battered to qualify for the Paris Olympics.

Johnson’s fighting fourth place finish in a frantic finale to the Olympic qualifying 10km marathon will see her make her Olympic debut in Paris alongside fellow Queenslander Chelsea Gubecka.

A relative newcomer to open water swimming, Moesha said she has become addicted to the challenge of open water swimming.

“I still feel somewhat of a rookie in open water swimming … it is unbelievably strategic, like the Tour de France in water,” she said.

“But I’m starting to feel more comfortable with playing around with tactics and different things when I’m out on the courses now.

“Open Water is a beautiful community, made up of pure work and pure toughness and with that comes a lot of respect and brings a lot of camaraderie and they are all quite humble achievers in a way.”

Johnson’s 1500m berth is also just reward for perseverance in distance freestyle in the pool.

For more than a decade the Gold Coaster plied her trade first under coaches Graeme McDonald and renowned British and former Australian Olympic coach Chris Nesbit.

Johnson’s next port of call was celebrated Olympic coach Michael Bohl and assistant coach Janelle Pallister (nee Elford) with the Griffith University program –out of the Swimming Australia HUB at the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre.

Until she joined Germany’s distance maestro Berkhahn alongside Olympic champion and open water great Sharon Van Rouwendaal.

Johnson was also part of the mixed 4x1500m relay team that won gold at the 2024 World Championships in Doha and bronze at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka.

POD POP UP STAT: For the first time since open water’s inclusion in the Olympic Games in 2008 in Beijing, Australia will field two female competitors on the River Seine this year with Chelsea Gubecka joining Johnson.