‘It’s a huge responsibility’ admits Paris Olympics star Ashleigh Johnson after becoming a trailblazer for Team USA

TEAM USA star Ashleigh Johnson is widely considered the best water polo goalkeeper in the world.

And the two-time Olympic gold medallist has also made a major impact in the sport as a trailblazer in diversity efforts.

In 2016, Johnson became the first Black athlete to make the US Olympic women's water polo team.

When Johnson started playing the sport in Florida , she was often the only Black girl in the pool.

It was a similar story when she got to Princeton and then the US Olympic team.

Johnson has now embraced her platform as a two-time Olympic gold medalist to help spread diversity awareness in the sport.

"Being the first to be in my position as the first Black woman to represent the US on the Olympic stage in water polo...it's a huge responsibility and it's definitely one of the reasons why I continue to play now," Johnson told The U.S. Sun.

"I think that being able to make an impact and literally trailblaze, pave a way for those who follow me is really important.

"It's important to me, but it's more important for those young girls and boys who are building their dreams right now and want to know how far they can go, whether that's in water polo, whether that's in sport, whether that's in life.

"And I think that people who do it first, they're never doing it alone, but they're who you look to, to understand how far, what are the limits, what can I break through here?

"And I'm proud to be able to be that person that young kids can look up to and even people who have left our sport or who played our sport and probably hit like a ceiling to what they thought they could accomplish, I think it inspires hope."

Johnson says she was inspired growing up by Black tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams , who similarly became icons in an overwhelmingly white sport.

"Getting to have that sort of inspiration is really important to, I think, accomplishing any goal in life," she added.

"But it's especially relevant to a sport like mine which doesn't typically have a lot of people who look like me.

"So being able to see other people of color, Black people representing and just telling a new story is really important."

Johnson says diversity efforts in water polo still have much room for growth since she burst onto the Olympic scene in 2016.

The Team USA men's water polo team has just one Black member on its roster: Max Irving.

"I don't know if [diversity] has increased, but I definitely talked to young Black girls and young Black boys and I do know that there's still a long, long way to go because of what I see at youth tournaments, what I see at tournaments that I compete in," she adds.

"It still doesn't look like our country...our sport still doesn't look like our country.

"So there's definitely ways that we can go and if we want the best playing, then we need a good representation of who we are in the water."

Johnson, 29, has adopted Dr Teal's Epsom salts into her routine as she prepares to compete for her third straight gold medal in Paris .

"I've used Dr Teal's since I was young. I learned from my mom," she added.

"I've been using Dr Teal's Epsom salts, especially like a 20-minute bath to recover, ease my sore muscles and just come back quicker the next day.

"I think when you train at our level, at the elite athlete level for something like the Olympics, you need something that's going to help you work hard and then speed your recovery.

"And that's Dr Teal's for me."