More than three decades have passed since Johanna Griggs made the huge call to retire from professional swimming. At the age of 19, Joh had already become a Commonwealth Games medallist and was one of Australia’s brightest swimming talents. But she was also exhausted.
As she prepares for the 2026 Commonwealth Games as a presenter and commentator, Joh reflects on the health battles that shaped her early career.
Joh says goodbye to the Games: ‘I hit a wall’
Shortly after winning bronze at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, Joh was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. On a restricted diet and dwindling motivation to continue, she eventually made a decision to leave the sport altogether. Today, she still stands by her decision.
“Good God, no,” Joh confirms to TV WEEK about second thoughts. “I’d had two and a half years of being on a wheat-free, yeast-free, egg-free, corn-free, malt-free, sugar-free, beef-free, dairy-free, herb-free, spice-free, caffeine-free diet, to get to the point where I finished number one in the world.
“I had to sleep with a heart rate monitor on and live this incredibly disciplined and structured lifestyle to be healthy. I hit a wall.”
Her efforts, thankfully, didn’t go wasted. Joh claimed gold at the Australian Swimming Championships in 1993, but even that triumph confirmed what she already knew: the high of winning was no longer worth the toll.
“It’s funny because everyone in Australian swimming thought I was back,” Joh recalls.
“But my coach took one look at me and knew what I knew; I needed to prove that to myself, but I was done.”
The phone call that changed everything
While retirement came as a surprise to others, it’s what followed that shocked Joh most. Having spent her formative years in the pool rather than school, her next move was a gamble.
“What I wasn’t thinking about was the fact that I basically had no education,” she says.
Then the phone rang.
“72 hours after I announced my retirement, I had three network contract offers,” she says.
“All these years on, I realise how incredibly rare that is. Every athlete hopes there might be an amazing career at the end of what they’re doing, but there’s way more athletes out there who are far brilliant in their sports than I was, and they haven’t had those opportunities.”
Despite the struggle, Joh has great fondness for her time in the pool. She travelled internationally “17 times before I was 17” and built a community around the sport..
“I don’t look back at swimming and think, ‘Gosh I had so much angst’,” Joh says. “I didn’t follow the black line as such; it was incredibly social for me. You feel at such peak physical shape too. So from that point of view, when you’re meant to be bulletproof, you feel like you are. I loved it.”
Among her career highlights, Joh’s bronze medal in the women’s 100m backstroke at the Commonwealth Games still stands out — partly because it came as such a surprise.
“I’d taken a good chunk of time off my personal best to make it into the final, so my Games had been epic by that point,” she recalls. “I remember thinking I’d had a great race. Then I looked up [at the results] and saw I got bronze… I couldn’t believe it.”
Joh’s family surprise
Alongside her commentary career, Joh has been at the helm of lifestyle program, Better Homes and Gardens since 2005, She is also approaching the 20th anniversary of her marriage to husband Todd Huggins, is a loving mother to sons Jesse and Joe with ex-husband Gary Sweet, and also a proud grandmother.
“It blows my mind how lucky I am,” she smiles.
Joh married Gary when she was 21 and had their first son at 22. It may seem young to have children, but Joh was ready after the life she had lived.
“I was ready to have children because I guess, I hadn’t been living a particularly normal life,” she says. “I probably packed more into those first 22 years than a lot of people do at that age.”
Being young also had its benefits: “You can cope without sleep when you’re young,” she says.
Despite everything Joh achieved in the pool, she never made a point of showing off her medals to her children. In fact, they weren’t fully aware of her athletic profile at all until high school.
“They didn’t even know I was a swimmer,” she says with a laugh. “When Jesse was in Year 7, he came home from school and said, ‘People were talking about you at school today. Were you a swimmer or a swimmer’s swimmer?’”
Joh suggested he decide for himself and showed him her statistics. The result was a hilarious family story.
“He laughed and said, ‘That’s so embarrassing. I said [to the people at school] that I’d never seen you in a pool! I basically argued that you aren’t a swimmer at all. But it turns out, you are!’”
With a laugh she adds: “I think that’s quite healthy!”
The 2026 Commonwealth Games will begin Friday July 24 on Channel Seven and 7Plus
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