Fairweather announced yesterday she was moving to Auckland to be coached by new national head coach Graham Hill, at North Shore Swimming Club.
The 21-year-old’s move comes after Dunedin coach Lars Humer announced he is stepping back from international coaching but will remain as the head of Swim Dunedin.
Fairweather has worked with Humer since he returned to Dunedin in 2018, coaching the freestyle specialist to two Olympics and a world championship title last year.
Johns believed shifting to Auckland would be an easy adjustment for Fairweather, who declined to be interviewed.
"Obviously she spends a lot of time up here already ... so I think she’ll find the transition won’t be too difficult for her," Johns said.
Fairweather’s main focus remained the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, but she also had world championships later this year — and in 2027 — and the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in between, he said.
"I’m sure she’s got her mind set on LA, but there’s a whole lot of milestones along the way.
"She’s a current world champion — we’d love to keep it that way."
Johns understood the rest of Dunedin’s high-performance swimmers would remain in the city.
Humer said it had been an "absolute privilege" to work alongside elite athletes, but decided it was time to "catch my breath and do some things for me".
Humer has been one of New Zealand’s top coaches since the late 1970s, starting in Dunedin under Duncan Laing.
"That’s been one of the really exciting things ... the people he’s attracted down in Dunedin," Johns said.
"We’ve seen the high-performance squad in Dunedin grow, and flourish, and get more and more successful to a point where, at the moment, it is one of the top high-performance programmes in the country.
"That’s a real testament to his coaching skills and experience and just his mana as a coach."
Johns paid tribute to the support "the good people of Dunedin" gave Fairweather and Humer to reach the heights of their success.
"To have a city behind you like that is pretty special."
