Second Stellar NCAAs Backs Jonny Marshall’s Great Britain Decision
Jonny Marshall was only 17, but he had a consequential decision to make. In retrospect, it doesn’t seem that difficult of a choice.
Marshall was then a promising swimmer at Ohio’s Firestone High School. The Akron native was perhaps not a surefire international, but he was a prized Division I recruit. And he was in demand by two prominent national-team programs.
It was 2022, and Marshall had opted to swim British Trials in the spring of his senior year of high school. He did well enough to garner an invite to the European Junior Championships for Great Britain. Without a trials swim, the U.S. left a spot for him to compete under its flag at the Mel Zajac International.
In deciding between the country of his birth and the country of his mom’s upbringing, the decision ultimately wasn’t hard.
“I think it was a thing of pride for me and something just to make my family proud,” Marshall said at the NCAA Championships in Federal Way, Washington. “I made that decision very young. … For me, it was easy. I wanted to represent a team that my family had already represented. And I’m very blessed to have that opportunity, and to be able to go to the Olympics at 19 was an added benefit of that.”
Jonny Marshall; Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
The family’s swimming legacy is how Marshall literally came to be in Ohio. His mother, Louise Gowens, hails from Southend-on-Sea in Essex. She swam internationally for Britain, making a European Championships. She chose the American college route, ending up at the University of Cincinnati, where she met and married a fellow swimmer, Steve Marshall.
Hence Jonny Marshall, the English Olympian from that exotic former colonial outpost of Ohio.
“It was kind of something I inherited,” he said.
All of that might’ve been relegated to a footnote and a point of personal pride had Marshall not continued to steadily improve at every turn. He went with Britain in 2022 to Euro Juniors in Otopeni, Romania, and won silver in the 50 back (behind Ksawery Masiuk of Poland), bronze in the 100 back (behind Masiuk and Ukraine’s Oleksandr Zheltyakov) plus men’s medley relay gold and mixed medley relay silver.
After an excellent debut season at Florida that included the backstroke double at SECs, he found his way onto the Great Britain Olympic team, finishing 14th in the 100 back with a best time of 53.46 in Paris. While the U.S. is deep in that stroke in particular on the men’s side, he’d be a handy option, his Paris time good for fifth at Olympics Trials.
The Olympic experience was special for Marshall, with his parents and grandparents – the Gowens still call Essex home – in attendance, to go with plenty of friends back home in America.
“It was definitely the most pressure I’d ever felt,” he said. “It’s SECs times 10, all the eyes that are invested in me. After I got through the prelim, I just kind of let it all go and said, this is kind of a celebration of my swimming career. That’s how I like to look at it.”
Marshall readily cops to not being the most British of the lads. He spent last summer training at Loughborough University with Luke Greenbank and Adam Peaty under coach Mel Marshall (no relation, though Jonny counts her as a valuable advocate). He’s planning to train with fellow Gator Alex Painter at Painter’s alma mater, Millfield School, in Somerset next month ahead of British nationals.
“I definitely get a little bit of crap for being so American,” he said. “And I wouldn’t say that I say, ‘dude’ and ‘bro’ as much over there. But it really is a really nice team, and I love all the guys on that team, so it is really a second home for me.”
The first half of Marshall’s college career has been excellent. He’s 4-for-4 in SEC backstroke championships. He was eighth in the 100 back and fourth in the 200 back as a freshman at NCAAs.
In his second go-round in Washington this week, he’s replaced Adam Chaney as the Gators’ go-to backstroker. He led off Florida’s 200 medley relay in 20.59, that team looking like it had won gold before a disqualification. They atoned by routing the field in the 400 medley, Marshall out in 43.87.
Earlier in the Friday session, he went 43.22 to finish second in the 100 backstroke, behind only the NCAA record of 43.20 by Hubert Kos of Texas. Marshall’s is listed as the American record, erasing Luca Urlando’s 43.35, though that might not stand given his international representation. He finished fifth in the 200 back in 1:37.00.
“It was surreal to go a 43.22 and lose, but I was very happy,” he said. “I didn’t know I’d be so happy with getting second. Props to Hubert. That was an amazing swim and just a great race. The competitor in me is a little bit disappointed, but I think the swimmer in me is very proud.”
