John Lohn
John Lohn is a long-serving swimming journalist and editor whose coverage treats aquatics as a complete competitive landscape, from Olympic legends and Hall of Famers to coaches, programs and the venues that shape the sport. As editor-in-chief at Swimming World, he guides and contributes coverage that mixes meet reporting with historical context and a clear sense of stewardship for competitive swimming. His primary focus is swimming, but he also steps into broader sports when they intersect with standout aquatic programs, such as Carmel (Ind.) being recognized as the nation’s top high school sports program.
Elite Meets and Championship Cycles
Lohn’s reporting consistently follows the major championship rhythm of the sport, from national meets to global events like the Olympic Games, World Championships and United States Olympic Trials.
He has covered multiple Olympic cycles and top-tier international competitions, which allows his meet pieces to place performances within a longer arc of an athlete’s career and the event’s history. Earlier work such as “Eight Days of Excellence” and “Day-by-day Coverage” reflects a style built on systematic, session-by-session reporting, tracking how storylines develop over the course of a meet rather than isolated races.
In more recent digital issues, his bylines on features like “2024 Athletes of the Year” show him distilling a full season into focused recognition of standout performers, linking domestic and international success.
Swimming History, Records and Hall of Fame
A defining strand of Lohn’s work is his attention to the sport’s history and the preservation of key performances and personalities.
He writes recurring “World Record Flashback” pieces, revisiting swims such as Ian Crocker’s 100 butterfly world record and Michael Phelps’ early breakthrough in the 200 butterfly, treating each as an inflection point and unpacking why it still matters years later. His features on Hall of Fame athletes and “forgotten” stars - such as Don Schollander and a cohort of perhaps overlooked inductees - combine detailed career retelling with a corrective aim, bringing athletes back into the center of the conversation. Lohn also profiles historically important venues, as in his piece on the Indiana University Natatorium, where he ties the aura of the pool to specific Trials races and moments that helped define modern American swimming.
Beyond magazine work, he has authored multiple books on competitive swimming and Olympic history, further reinforcing his role as one of the sport’s key chroniclers.
Coaches, Programs and Governance
Lohn devotes substantial coverage to the people and institutions that shape training environments and the structure of the sport. His long-form feature on coach Dave Salo as the “Pied Piper of Swimming” looks at how a single program can aggregate elite talent and influence broader trends in coaching and performance.
Pieces such as his article on Steve Roush taking the helm of the American Swim Coaches Association show him tracking leadership changes in key organizations and explaining how those shifts affect elite athletes and coaches. At the program level, he writes on powerhouse clubs and scholastic teams, including coverage of Carmel High School’s status as the top high school sports program in the country, using these stories to show how sustained success is built and maintained.
His work across these subjects emphasizes structure and accountability, giving readers a clear view of how decisions off the blocks ripple through the competitive landscape.
Voice for the Sport and Editorial Perspective
Alongside straight reporting, Lohn regularly uses first-person and essay formats to articulate a broader editorial voice for swimming. In “Thank You Swimming: An Appreciation From An Initial Outsider,” he reflects on more than 20 years in the sport, describing how repeated assignments and relationships with athletes and coaches turned an early outsider into a committed advocate. The recurring “A Voice For The Sport” framing in Swimming World issues underlines his role in speaking directly to the swimming community about what and who deserves attention, often highlighting athletes or contributors who might not otherwise lead headlines.
He also engages with instructional and developmental material, such as his endorsement of the technique-focused book “Get Going!
With Competitive Swimming,” where he evaluates its usefulness for swimmers and coaches across ages and levels. Across these editorial pieces, Lohn’s through-line is clear: he treats journalism as part of the sport’s infrastructure, using it to honor achievement, preserve memory and push swimming toward a more informed and appreciative audience.
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