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For Ashleigh Johnson, the star goalkeeper of the U.S. women’s water polo team, the Paris Olympics have been something of a reunion — a moment to reconnect with former teammates from her days competing on Greek and Italian teams.
“It’s definitely like catching up with old friends,” she says. “When I’m in the game it’s all edge, but they still get the jump on me and so do I for them.”
At the Paris Aquatics Centre, it’s safe to say Johnson got the jump on them — the U.S. crushed both Greece and Italy in the preliminary rounds. Though that outcome wasn’t entirely unexpected.
The day we met Johnson, in late June at the team’s training pool in Long Beach, Cal., she was buzzing about a victory over Italy in an exhibition game the day before.
The team’s head coach, Adam Krikorian, was cueing up dozens of video shots, to review the game with the team.
“Our coach is going to only show us the bad plays,” Johnson laughed. “But it's good. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of things to build on.”
The U.S. women’s team is defending a formidable record in Paris. They’ve taken home gold at the past three Olympics, in London, Rio and Tokyo, and they’re now eyeing their fourth gold medal in Paris.
Coach Krikorian says gold is far from guaranteed. “I'm not afraid to say it. We're not as talented as we've been in the past. But this team is incredibly tight, and it's been one of the most enjoyable teams that I've had the opportunity to coach,” he says.
The team has lost a few times, to Hungary in an exhibition game in July, and to Spain in one of the Olympic preliminaries. But the team has won all 21 of its other games this year. Krikorian says the team’s success is no doubt due in part to Ashleigh Johnson, now competing in her third Olympic Games.
She’s the first Black woman to play on the U.S. women’s water polo team. And she’s widely considered one of the best goalkeepers in the world. She made 80 saves at the Tokyo Olympics — more than any other goalkeeper, in either the women’s or men’s tournaments.
“She's an incredible athlete,” Krikorian says. “She's fiercely competitive, and you would never know it by her demeanor or by the huge smile on her face. But to us, on the inside, we know how driven she is to be one of the best.”
Johnson says that sense of competition was bred at home, growing up in Miami with three brothers and a sister.
“It was always like a race to finish what was on your plate, a race to get to the best seat in the house, on the couch, watching TV first,” she says. “So when we started swimming, it was like, OK, who's going to get this stroke best first? Who's going to be able to, like, hold that streamlined rocket ship across the pool and go the furthest?”
Johnson’s parents were both born in Jamaica. Growing up in Florida and attending Princeton, she didn’t fit the mold of the Olympians on the women’s water polo team — almost all of whom grew up in and attended college in California. So when Johnson made the team, she says it was an uncomfortable transition.
“I didn't really have a dream to be here because I just didn't see a pathway to be here,” she says. “I didn't see anyone who looked like me here, anyone with my background here. It just seemed like a world away.”
Johnson’s barrier-breaking entry to the team also brought high expectations from the media, and her coach — expectations that she would step up as a role model for younger players who looked like her. “And I didn't understand that, you know? I was like, I'm here to play water polo. Like, I really need to get better at blocking!”
Eventually, she says, she developed a greater understanding of what her recruitment meant, amid the historical exclusion of people of color from aquatic spaces, and the opportunity she had to help write a new story that moved beyond that.
“Like, I play this game differently. I look differently than most people in my sport, and I even approach my preparation a little bit differently than most people and have a different mindset. And those things made me feel weird when I was young. But now they're my strengths. So I tell a lot of kids who tell me that they don't feel like they fit into their team — I'm like, ‘You keep being you. Your difference makes you great. Your uniqueness is an add, and it takes all types.’”
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