Grace Johnson earned All-American honors in six different events in her career. She was a three-time All-American in the 100-yard butterfly, finishing as high as fourth at the Division III Championships. She was also a three-time All-American in the 200-yard individual medley and was an All-American in 2004 and 2005 in the 200-yard butterfly, finishing as high as sixth place at Nationals. In relay events, she earned All-America recognition in the 400-yard medley relay, 400-yard freestyle relay and the 800-yard freestyle relay.
Grace won the CCIW Championship in the 200-yard butterfly in 2002, 2003 and 2004, with additional conference championships in the 100-yard butterfly (2003, 2004 and 2005) and 200-yard individual medley (2005). She established Wheaton records in the 100-yard butterfly and 200-yard butterfly in her career.
Jon Lederhouse, her coach at Wheaton says, "Grace came to Wheaton as a solid high school swimmer, and improved significantly as a freshman, dropping two full seconds in her 100 fly. This put her on the fly leg of our 400 medley relay at the NCAA Championships, and in that Championship Final we were in first place halfway through the race when Grace took off, knowing virtually all the other relays' flyers were faster than her. I really didn't know how she would handle that pressure, but she swam a PR time on her leg and our relay finished third!" Lederhouse continues, "Two days later she swam her least favorite event, the 200 fly and made a tactical error trying to stay with the top seed in the event (swim coaches refer to it as a "fly and die". Finishing well back in 22nd, instead of giving up on that event, she worked harder the following season and swam 12-seconds faster at the NCAA Championships her sophomore year to place sixth and earn All-American."
Grace says of her time at Wheaton, "Through the role modeling of Coach Lederhouse and my swimming experience at Wheaton I learned valuable life lessons. One of those is that all I have and I am is a gift from God, and consequently my attitude should glorify God regardless of circumstances or performance. Secondly, I came to see the value of being part of a team and how, just like the body of Christ, every member holds a vital role."
She reflects on her time with the team, "My favorite memories are the fun times with my teammates, including meals together after practices, team devotionals and worship times, bus rides to and from swim meets, team cheers and accomplishing hard workouts together." She adds, "One of my favorite meets was the 2003 NCAA Championships at Emory University in Atlanta where I was able to set PR's in all of the individual and relay races that I competed in."
Grace represented Argentina at the 2004 South American Games in the pool. She was the Argentine National Champion in the 100-meter butterfly (1:04.5) and later went on to set a PR in the 400-yard individual medley. From 2013-16, she competed as a professional triathlete.
