GIRL NEXT DOOR Johanna Griggs’ effortless charm has endeared her to generations of Australians over the last 30 years. Behind the graceful nature is a dedicated and well prepared professional. WORDS James Perkins PHOTOGRAPHY Supplied by the Seven Network Johanna Griggs feels like part of the family. We’ve grown up with her. First, she was a champion swimmer, and then a TV panelist and a reporter with Channel 7, and now she is in our living rooms each Friday as presenter of Better Homes and Gardens. She has a warm, genuine and comfortable presence on television, whether she is explaining a gardening tip, or hosting reality television show House Rules; that’s why there is so much love for her from around Australia. Johanna is a very busy woman: she flies state to state each week for television, sits on the board of Beyond Blue and runs a construction company with her husband Todd Huggins. She talked to Mercedes-Benz Parramatta from the Hunter Valley where she was preparing to film for Better Homes and Gardens on a chilly winter morning, with the sun rising from behind the hills. It is here that she and Todd plan to retire and live off the grid, while producing at least 90 per cent of their food on the property. Johanna has been reading a lot about compost lately, in anticipation. The many compost books that she has been throwing herself into present a valuable insight into a personal quality that has driven her successes from the swimming pool to the television screen: research and preparation. “I’ve really opened a can of worms. Everyone has a theory on how to create the perfect compost – it’s very funny. When you start researching a topic, you find all kinds of controversies and passionate people and I find it very interesting to discover these things.” HITTING THE WALL At 17, Johanna was already a star in and out of the pool on the national stage. But at an age where she should have been in her physical prime and taking on the world, she was struck down by chronic fatigue syndrome and forced to take around 18 months out of the pool. After one aborted comeback that ended when Johanna was hospitalised with pleurisy, she took some modeling work and relaxed. The call of the pool soon became too strong and she planned another comeback – but it was not going to come easy. It would take an incredibly strict diet and groundbreaking sports science that included almost constant monitoring of her health in the smallest detail. She even slept with a heart-rate monitor on to learn more about her health and sleeping patterns through the analysis of resting heart rate. It was way ahead of its time. The only way to overcome the illness and reach peak performance was through deep research and preparation. “Our approach was reconstructed. My coach was one of the first ones who worked out that training for a sprinter is not the same as a distance or open water swimmer – we focused completely on being the fastest.” That’s what she became: In 1993, Johanna won the 50m backstroke at the Australian Championships in a world’s best time for the year, and that was the end of her swimming career. “When I hit the wall I knew that was it. I had proven to myself that I could do it, and that was more important than anything else. So I announced my retirement.” A NEW START Television offers flooded in. She spent time as a panelist on various shows on several channels, and eventually she chose Channel 7, because the network offered her training – but it never came. Johanna laughs when she calls her early TV career “humiliating”, but for someone who understands the priceless value of preparation, it was not a pleasant start. The first thing she learned was how to ask questions. As an athlete, Johanna was so used to getting constructive feedback, but that didn’t come in television and she became frustrated. She had to ask. “I would have bosses yelling in my earpiece live on television saying, ‘don’t say that!’ As an athlete, I was very used to following directions and was happy to cop criticism, as long as someone sat me down and explained the reasoning behind it.” Enter the veteran sports broadcaster Bruce McAvaney, whose help and advice was what Johanna was looking for. “He told me that it doesn’t matter what you do or say, as long as you know your stuff, no one can criticise. He is the greatest person to learn from – his application and his methodical approach to preparation and research is just phenomenal.” J MERCEDES-BENZ PARRAMATTA 8 FEATURE