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PRINCETON, N.J. — Princeton University alumna Ashleigh Johnson ’17 will aim to help the two-time defending Olympic Champion United States women’s National Team rampage to another Gold Medal at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.

The U.S. squad is seeking its third straight Olympic Gold Medal this summer after earning the previous two medals in 2012 and 2016. The women’s water polo action be July 24th-August 7th at the Tatsumi Water Polo Centre in Tokyo, Japan.

The 2019 Swimming World Female Water Polo Player of the Year and a four-time Player of the Year selection during the decade of 2010-to-2019, Johnson is among only two Tigers’ athletes ever to win an Olympic gold medal (in 2016) and then come back to compete at Princeton (Bill Bradley was the other).

The C. Otto von Kienbusch and Cutino Awards during her senior season in 2017, she was the first player in Princeton women’s water polo history to be named first team All-America and third ever to be selected  All-America in each of her four seasons. Johnson finished her Princeton career with a 100-17 record, along with a school-record 1,362 saves and a .693 save percentage. She was a 19-time Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Defensive Player of the Week award winner, a four-time first-team all-conference player and the CWPA Player of the Year.

Johnson’s selection marks the fourth time in the past four Olympics that the United States’ cage will be defended by a CWPA alumna as University of Michigan graduate and CWPA Hall of Fame member Betsey Armstrong was the goalie for the 2008 Silver Medal and 2012 Gold Medal squads.

Collegiate Water Polo Association