Having spent the year training, competing and continuing her schooling at PLC in Sydney, Johnson was given the opportunity to trial for the AIS in the October school holidays.

Head coach at the New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS), Jim Fowlie, could see Johnson needed to take her training to the next level.

Fowlie approached head coach at the AIS, Shannon Rollason, and after the first week of the two-week trial, Johnson was offered a scholarship at the AIS.

The scholarship provides for Johnson’s living, training and education needs and the 16-year-old will start at the AIS on December 1 and her first competition as part of that team will be at the Victorian Open Championships in the middle of January.

One of 20 athletes at the AIS on swimming scholarships, Johnson will come under the tutelage of Tracey Menzies, the former coach of Olympic gold medallist Ian Thorpe.

One of the aims of the AIS is to provide opportunities for athletes from regional Australia and while trialling at the AIS, Johnson shared an apartment with an archer from Perth and two rowers from Queensland.

The move to Canberra comes after some solid results throughout the year -

in March at the Telstra Australian Championships, against some of the best swimmers in Australia, Johnson came sixth in the 100m and 200m butterfly finals.

After that event she held the records for the NSW 16-years girls 50m, 100m and 200m butterfly and subsequently took up a scholarship at the NSWIS.

Johnson was selected in the Australian team for the US West Coast tour where she did not achieve any personal bests in the butterfly but placed in the finals of each swim.

She was also in the Australia ‘B’ freestyle relay team which finished second only to Australia ‘A’.

At the Telstra Australian Short Course Championships in August, Johnson achieved personal best times in the finals of the 100m and 200m butterfly where she set NSW records in the 16 years 50m, 100m and 200m butterfly.