Johanna Griggs knows better than anyone the sacrifices professional athletes make and so the TV presenter was quick to express her fury at a decision not to show athletes entering the stadium as the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games came to a close.

Griggs won a bronze medal in swimming at the 1990 Commonwealth Games at just 17, but on the heels of her victory came a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome.

It knocked her for six but, after taking a break from swimming, she returned to the pool to win the 50-metre backstroke at the Australian Swimming Championships in 1993.

And then she retired from the sport for good.

It was a long road to get from that moment to become one of Australia's most respected TV personalities.

Johanna Griggs was born on October 17, 1973 in Queensland.

She took up swimming to help with her asthma and when she called time on her athletic career she had offers from multiple networks to launch a new career in TV.

Choosing the Seven Network, she was thrown in at the deep end and things began to unravel. After marrying actor Gary Sweet at the age of 21 she became a single mother at 24 when he left her and their two sons.

While on maternity leave, Seven sacked her.

But she found her feet with a role at the ABC before returning to Seven, where she became a bankable face at Better Homes and Gardens, House Rules and hosting various aspects of the network's sports coverage.

She became the first female host to solely present a winter Olympics, anchoring the 2002 games from Salt Lake City in Utah.

Griggs found love again, when introduced to a friend of her brother's, Todd Huggins, in 2005.

He was a building foreman and she took the time to make sure her boys knew he wanted them as well as their mother, she once told Fairfax.

The pair wed in 2006.

Australian Associated Press