A Column By Len Johnson

Len Johnson wrote for The Melbourne Age as an athletics writer for over 20 years, covering five Olympics, 10 world championships and five Commonwealth Games.

He has been the long-time lead columnist on RT and is one of the world’s most respected athletic writers.

He is also a former national class distance runner (2.19.32 marathon) and trained with Chris Wardlaw and Robert de Castella among other running legends. He is the author of The Landy Era.

With most of Australia gripped in a heatwave, how’re you going to cool down. How else than by talking cross-country. We’re coming up to the ‘one year to go’ date for the twice-postponed World Cross-Country Championships, now set down for 18 February, 2023. I would have said “settled on” but when Olympic Games and world championships have been postponed during these crazy times, all schedules are aspirational.
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe The most unexpected of many coincidences and surprises surrounding the launch of The Landy Era back in 2009 was the appearance of Billy Mills. My book had already enjoyed the benefit of several twists of good fate, chiefly in being ready for launch at the...
Jim Dunaway, who passed away earlier this year, was one of the giants of track and field journalism. Or perhaps he was a dinosaur, as in ‘we won’t see the likes of him again’, a creature from a past age, rather than in the literal sense. Mostly, he was just Jim....
When my wife and I started going out back in 1983, one of our first dates was to attend an ALP campaign rally at Melbourne’s Box Hill town hall. In reality, it was more an acclamation than a rally for Australian Labor Party leader Bob Hawke who, two days...
Olympic or world champions at 1500 metres all. Some of them both. But what else do most of them have in common? They never ran the short race at the world cross-country championships or, if they did, did so without great success.
The news this week of the collapse of the alleged drug case against Peter Bol was greeted by the athlete as a complete exoneration and by Sport Integrity Australia as “a decision not to progress an anti-doping rule violation for this sample.”
A week that begins with the smashing of an Australian record which has stood for 43 years is already a good one, but the entire month of July has been a bit of a bonanza for Australian middle-distance running. Stretching the scale out to include the long-distance events, and bending...
Jared Tallent’s retirement leaves Australia one champion short in the race walking department. Four Olympic medals – one gold, two silver and one bronze – over three Olympic Games eloquently attest to that. Coincidentally, Melbourne Track Classic, formerly Australia’s most prestigious invitational track and field meeting but now, in this...
There have been exciting advances on the Australian indoor all-time list in recent weeks. A number of athletes – including Stewart McSweyn, Morgan McDonald, Ollie Hoare and Jessica Hull – have produced performances putting them among the top Australians ever. McDonald ran 7:42.76 for 3000 metres at New York’s famous...