It took Albany most of its 200 years to produce an Olympic medallist, but Sonja Johnson achieved the feat after claiming a brilliant eventing silver on her beloved horse Ringwould Jaguar at the 2008 Beijing Games.
A former pupil at Spencer Park Primary School and then Albany Senior High School, the feted horsewoman is a passionate advocate for Albany but believes her sporting success pales into insignificance compared to the contributions to the city made by her grandfathers — one of whom was a long-serving member of Parliament and the other who became mayor.
“I actually feel that what I’ve done for Albany is absolutely nothing compared to them,” she said.
“I look around Albany and see what they did and all I’ve managed is a medal that sits in a cupboard.”
Her maternal grandfather was Leonard Hill, who was the member for Albany from 1936 to 1956, while on her father’s side, Charles Johnson was a prominent land agent responsible for the Swan Point and Flinders Park subdivisions – now Bayonet Head – who was mayor from 1962-64.
Going a further generation back to Hill’s father George, Johnson has a tale to tell there too.
“He used to buy cattle in the north, ship them to Albany and then jump them off the ship into the harbour,” she said.
“He would drive them through the water onto Stirling Terrace and then up York Street to the abattoir in Yakamia.
“Perhaps that explains my love of farming!”
As well as that passion for agriculture, Johnson has also inherited their fervent love of the city and believes if her success proves one thing it’s that country kids can make it big.
“I just feel very, very proud that I have proved to some little extent that country kids can do anything,” Johnson said.
“I was told I couldn’t make it from here but the people who told me that weren’t country people.
“They had no idea I came from a community which said ‘let’s do things’ rather than wait to be handed things.
“They didn’t recognise that this mad, tiny kid from the country had fierce determination and focus.”
She credits her farming background as the reason for her longevity in the sport.
Shortlisted for every Olympics between 1996 and 2020, Johnson was only out of contention for Paris in 2024 because her horse broke down.
“The support I’ve had from here has been golden but that’s a long time to be at the top of the sport,” she said.
“The farming has kept my sanity and got me out of the pressure-cooker which is high-performance sport.”
The equestrian events at the Beijing Games were actually held in Hong Kong because of quarantine issues around the horses.
That distance from the main show left Johnson feeling she had been “a farmer from Albany who has just done well in the local gymkhana”.
When she returned to Australia she received lots of attention, but it wasn’t until she sat down six months later to see a video of the Games a friend had made, that it all sank in.
“I put on the video, sat in my chair and watched – I realised I had tears streaming down my face,” she said.
“That was the first time I realised; I was watching me at the Olympic Games.”
She recognises that maybe she’s nearing the end of her career as a top-flight eventer, but she’s not quite done with the sport at the highest level.
She has a couple of horses she’s training up and a couple of protege riders she’s coaching and has high hopes for the Brisbane Games in 2032.
“I’d love to be at Brisbane watching one of my young ones and being able to say I produced them and handed them over to the national coach to take them to a medal,” she said.
“I’ve been very lucky to come from an amazing family so I’d like to feel I’ve been a member of one of the more useful mobs in Albany.”
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