Paris 2024: Courageous Aussie Moesha Johnson falls just short of gold in marathon swim

Australian silver medallist Moesha Johnson says she has no regrets after falling agonisingly short of a gold medal in Paris, with a strong Seine current forcing the pace in an enticing 10km marathon race.

Courageous distance star Moesha Johnson has no regrets after her best friend and Dutch open water legend Sharon van Rouwendaal stole her Olympic gold medal with cunning tactics in a stunning 10km marathon swimming race in the River Seine.

Declaring she’d swum in much dirtier water than the much-publicised Paris waterway, Johnson said the entire race came down to one moment as the swimmers passed under the last bridge on the final sprint to glory.

Johnson, who had led for the best part of 6km in one of the bravest swims in open water history, hugged the shoreline while van Rouwendaal cut the corner slightly and used the current to push her way into the lead and win by just five seconds with the Australian taking silver.

Australian silver medallist Moesha Johnson on the podium alongside her best friend. Picture: Clive Rose/Getty Images

“It’s gonna take a while to sink in,” Johnson said.

Johnson never planned to be the race leader, but seeing the field stretch out in single file and knowing the current was so strong that it was going to be almost impossible to overtake on the return home, she knew it was her only way to chase an all-or-nothing shot at glory.

But it meant the tactical van Rouwendaal could draft for the last three laps in second place before making her final move to snatch the gold medal - her third Olympic medal in a row in this event and second gold after winning at Rio in 2016.

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“I knew I was probably working a bit harder, but at the same time, I knew, out of all the girls, I was the one who could drag out the field and stretch us out, which is exactly what I did,” Johnson said.

“And yeah, guaranteed myself a medal quite early on in the race, and then, yeah, just fought it out to the end with those currents.

“The only thing that changed at the end was under that bridge, there’s these pillars and the currents really strong coming through it, and there’s two options, and I knew whatever option I took, Sharon behind me would have taken the other one, and we just had to fight it out and see which route was quicker or who was stronger.

Moesha Johnson fought it out against strong Seine currents. Picture: AFP

“And obviously, that’s kind of where she passed me into the gold medal position. But I am happy with my choice. I committed to it … to come out with a medal is just unbelievable.

“She’s such a tough competitor, she’s like the GOAT of the sport, three podiums at three Olympics in this sport, I don’t think anyone else has done that.

“She’s my best friend, and I’m so happy for her, and she played to her strengths, I played to my strengths … I’m just so happy for her and her gold medal.”

By the time Johnson reached media she’d already chugged a can of coke, a tactic adopted by the Aussie team to immediately kill any potential bacteria ingested from the Seine.

Next will come earwashes, mouthwashes, antibiotics and monitoring from the medical officials in the Australian Olympic team who had zero illnesses reported from the triathletes who competed in the same water a week ago.

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Johnson said while she’s swum in worse looking and worse tasting water than the Seine, this course had more unexpected obstacles.

“We’ve all got quite beaten up,” she said.

“One of the boats had plants in it with, like, I don’t know, like, spikes, and we’ve got scratches on us.

Moesha Johnson (L) says downing a coca-cola helped battle the Seine conditions. Picture: JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP

“Normally you’re just battling with the other girls, and that’s what’s the rough part. But we’re actually battling the course a lot today, and I think the hardest part was, if you moved over a metre to try and pass someone, the current was just that much more dramatic.

“You probably saw us hugging the edge of the wall. I hit the wall a few times unintentionally, but as soon as you moved over, you were just pushing against a current and coming in to that pontoon at the end was just such hard work.”

Johnson created headlines when she revealed the team’s secret coca-cola strategy to combat illness from the Seine last week to News Corp, the story reaching all the way to the Wall Street Journal.

Now she’s getting asked about it with a silver medal around her neck.

“If Coca Cola is listening, this is your cue,” Johnson said.

Originally published as Paris 2024: Courageous Aussie Moesha Johnson falls just short of gold in marathon swim