Paris Olympic silver medallist Moesha Johnson has capped off the season of her life, with a slashing victory in the World Aquatics World Cup finale in NEOM, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The 27-year-old Queenslander recorded her second-successive Open Water Swimming World Cup victory, rounding off a stunning season which included marathon swimming silver at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and World Championship gold as part of Australia’s 4x1500m mixed relay team.
Johnson finished the race in the Red Sea, which formed part of the NEOM Beach Games, in one hour 58 minutes and 52.2 seconds, which was 31.3 secs ahead of Leah Boy (GER) and Ginevra Taddeucci (ITA).
Legendary Brazilian Ana Marcela Cunha finished seventh, a result which ensured she collected enough points to claim the women’s overall World Cup title for the 2024 season.
“I’m happy that the (open water) year is done with quite a success,” Johnson told World Aquatics.
“Lap four was not fun, I came through probably last. On the back straight I picked a straight line and all of a sudden, the pack was gone, and I was like, ‘ah well, here we go!’
“The course looks quite smooth, but there are waves and a bit of a swell which knocked us about a little bit in that last straight when I was on my own and I was struggling to get my arms over, but I was happy with the outcome, obviously.”
Johnson slipped from third at the halfway stage to 22nd at the end of the fourth lap, but the pack was so congested that she was only just over 10 seconds off the temporary leader Ichika Kajimoto (JPN).
Perhaps fuelled by frustration, Johnson was soon kicking her way to the front of the field and took a 17.8 sec lead into the final lap from Taddeucci, with Cunha up to third.
While an advantage of that level is a huge positive heading into the closing stages some questioned whether she had burned too much energy for the last lap, but that proved not to be the case.
Johnson powered clear of her rivals to take a clear victory by 31.3 secs.
Interesting, perhaps due to the high levels of salt in the Red Sea, the entire field stopped to ‘feed’ at the end of the opening lap and that theme would be continued throughout the race.
But Johnson’s breakout year has one final stop – when she joins the Australian team for the 2024 World Short Course Championship in Budapest, starting on December 10.
