Johanna Griggs on why the Olympics gave her sleepless nights and the power of positivity

Jo Griggs has revealed why the Tokyo Olympics kept her up at night and the lesson learnt going into Beijing’s Winter Games.

Better Homes and Garden Host Johanna Griggs is doing double duty with the Winter Olympics for Channel 7.

Johanna Griggs says she was so worried about last year’s Tokyo Olympic Games that it gave her “sleepless nights”.

The versatile swimmer turned Channel 7 presenter says she agonised over whether the already postponed Games should even be going ahead while the Covid-19 pandemic raged around the world.

Although her duties were going to be confined to the relative safety of Seven’s Docklands studios in Melbourne, she feared for the welfare of the athletes who were competing and the media and support staff in Japan, and wondered if she was going to be in some way complicit if it turned out to be a dangerous, superspreader event.

“All that was running through my head and then I got halfway through day one thinking ‘I am so glad these Games are going ahead and how nice is it to focus on something other than the doom and gloom we have been fed this entire time?’,” she says.

“I found it really joyful and I personally think, if anything, it actually re-engaged people with the Olympics.”

Johanna Griggs will host the Winter Olympics for Channel 7.

Griggs will be back in the hot seat for her third Winter Olympics when the Beijing Games officially kick off with Friday’s opening ceremony.

And with the Omicron variant still wreaking havoc in Australia, she hopes that the coming together of some of the best athletes on the planet will once again provide a welcome distraction, as well as an escape from the sweltering summer heat.

Many locked-down schools integrated the Tokyo Games into their lessons last year and with children returning to classrooms this week, mother and grandmother Griggs would love to see them continue to use the aspirational and inspirations athletes’ stories from Beijing.

Although the Australian team of 44 is smaller than past squads, it’s arguably the strongest ever, with genuine medal chances including Scotty James in the snowboard half-pipe, Laura Peel and Danielle Scott in women’s aerial and Jakara Anthony in the women’s moguls.

There’s also the feel-good stories of Australia’s first Olympic curling team of Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt and skeleton medal hopeful Jackie Narracott, whose uncle Paul was the first Australian to compete at both a Summer and Winter Olympics.

Scotty James is one of Australia’s best medal chances.

“How fantastic for kids to have one, a distraction, and two, hear some news and see some positive stories that aren’t just focused on Covid,” she says.

“Hearing about people … chasing dreams and working really hard and all those great messages that you can get out of sport.

“With the stinking hot weather, we’ve always gone with the theory that there’s an element of escapism and also there’s not that same familiarity that people have with the athletes like they might have for a Summer Games. There are so many great stories in this Australian team that I can’t wait to share.”

Griggs will steer Channel 7’s weekday morning coverage from Beijing with Matt Shirvington and Emma Freedman taking over in the afternoon, Hamish McLachlan and Abbey Gelmi in the evening and Basil Zempilas and Georgie Parker doing late nights.

While the network will have a team of reporters and former Olympians on the ground including Jason Richardson, Mel McLaughlin, Lydia Lassila and Jacqueline Felgate, Griggs says one of the lessons learned from the Tokyo coverage was just how much could be achieved remotely.

Athletes at those Games had to compete without crowds and their usual support networks, meaning that their post-event interviews were often more emotional and revealing than past Olympics.

Australia's Tahli Gill, right, and Dean Hewitt compete during the mixed doubles round robin session 1 game of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games curling competition. Picture: AFP

Griggs says many of Australia’s Winter Olympians she spoke to before they left for the Games were also hoping that the country would get behind them from the comfort of their couch.

“I think they also saw the athletes who had been away for so long and their connection to their family was down the camera, and we got so much more from the athletes and I thought it was really tangible and noticeable for our coverage,” Griggs says.

Griggs, who won a bronze medal in backstroke at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, says she applies the same meticulous preparation to her research as she did to her competitive swimming.

She’s constantly having to correct misconceptions around the circumstances of her premature retirement nearly 30 years ago and wants to afford the athletes the respect of getting their stories right.

“I know every athlete, I know all their family’s names and I feel like I have lived their last four years or eight years or 12 years, so you feel like you have a real sense when you are talking to them or about them that you are doing justice for them,” she says.

Johanna Griggs with

“That was the nicest thing out of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, how many athletes who contacted me after they came home and watched the coverage and sent me little thankyou notes that I had gone that extra mile to learn more about them and their family.”

As if Griggs wasn’t busy enough already, Friday also sees the return of Better Homes and Gardens, which was one of the few TV programs to continue almost uninterrupted through the entire pandemic, including the presenter’s own brush with Covid earlier this year (“I had four horrible days and then I was OK,” she says).

“I have definitely felt a big boost in these last couple of years with people knowing they can watch 90 minutes a week of really positive, really inspirational, interesting stories that have lots of variety,” she says.

“We’d find all these great stories of people who had that moment a lot of us have had where you go ‘OK, is this what I want to do? Is this where I want to be in life or do I want to take that risk I have always dreamt about?’. Some of the stories we have had the biggest reaction to in the last two years has been telling positive stories that have come of the disaster that is Covid.”

The Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022, Channel 7 and 7plus. Better Homes and Gardens, Channel 7, Friday, 7pm.