City to Surf Turns 40: A Column By Len Johnson

Around 70,000 entries have been received. Reports of the death of the running boom appear to have been exaggerated.

The race from the centre of Sydney to the most famous surf beach in Australia _ Bondi _ was first staged in 1971. Then it started at the Town Hall; now it starts from Hyde Park. Then, and for the first five editions, it wound its way up through Kings Cross; now it goes through the tunnel.

Then it was won by visiting American runner Kenny Moore from Australia’s John Farrington. Beth Stanford was the first woman to finish out of just under 80 female entrants. That figure represented approximately four percent of the 2000-or-so total entries. Now, female participation rates hover around 50 percent, and women constituted a majority in the 2006 race.

Then the race was run on the first Sunday in September; now it is the second Sunday in August, though organisers graciously brought the race forward in 2000 to allow the Sydney Olympics a little clear air for publicity!

Back then, on seeing a runner, some ‘dags’ could not resist winding down the car window and enquiring: “Who do you think you are _ Ron Clarke?” Now, we’d know enough to retort: “No, but I’m channelling him!”

Now, of course, the City to Surf has a City2Surf tag, leading me to wonder whether this column should not be headed: “The City2Surf @ 40”, but in so many ways the race is the same as when it started. For a few, it’s about getting from the city to Bondi as quickly as possible. For a few more, it’s about running from the city to Bondi in the company of thousands of like-minded souls.

For the rest of the participants, and for all the spectators, the City to Surf is a festival of running. For one day each year, the community from the centre of town, through some of Sydney’s most exclusive suburbs and some of its most inclusive, is pretty much united by one event.

Everyone who has run a City to Surf has a favourite moment. Mine still remains the first, the moment I took a quick glance over my shoulder as I headed up William St into the tunnel to see the whole street filled with runners.

My next favourite moment concerns a race I didn’t even run _ the 1985 edition, when I was (kind of) responsible for getting the winner to Australia. I’d done a little bit of work for the City to Surf and other Fairfax running events, and was asked to suss out the possibility of Olympic marathon champ Carlos Lopes coming out.

I headed off to the 1985 world cross-country championships in Lisbon armed with several folders of promotional material and a few t-shirts (runners, even good ones, came relatively cheap then). I never did speak to Carlos, my nerve and my Portuguese both being pretty much non-existent.

But I did invite English marathoner Hugh Jones over for a cup of tea and a chat while we were training on the Algarve, told him about the race, gave him the t-shirt and the organiser contacts. Fivemonths later, Jones became the first overseas winner since Kenny Moore and my career as a race promoter came to an end with a 100 percent strike rate.

I finished my first City to Surf, the 1978 race, still holding an orange t-shirt. Back then, the elite and semi-elite runners used to line up on the traffic-light island across the intersection from the official start. The practice was condoned by race organisers, but they also disqualified any runner detected not starting from the official line.

So you wore an old t-shirt to cover your race number. I intended to discard mine along the way but, in the excitement, I carried it in my hand all the way to the finish.

That was also the year of the ‘false start’, when all the runners were given an arbitrary two-minute penalty. There certainly was a premature start and the official timing no doubt started late, but I reckon we were ‘dudded’. Six years later, I ran my second City to Surf and recorded pretty much the same time despite not being in anything like the same form.


Over the years, the City to Surf has been run, and won, by some of Australia’s best. John Farrington won three in a row after that first race, Angie Cook went from first schoolgirl in the inaugural race to a two-time winner in 1974 and 1975. Robert de Castella, Chris Wardlaw, Bill Scott and Steve Austin _ Olympians all _ were among the early winners.

‘Deek’ set a race record 40 minutes eight seconds in 1981, which Steve Moneghetti chased for four years before beating it by five seconds in 1991. Allison Roe of New Zealand, Lisa Ondieki and, finally, Susie Power, set outstanding female race records. Ondieki ran so fast that her coach, Dick Telford, wearing a light-weight head-cam for television, had to take a short-cut from New South Head to Old South Head Rd to keep up with her.

‘Mona’ did even better as a wired-up runner in 2004, leading pretty well all the way before losing out in a sprint to Tanzania’s three-time winner Patrick Nyangelo and his teammate Dickson Marwa. Apparently he’d just asked them: “Can’t you run any faster?”

Actually, I made that bit up. But there are 70,000 stories in the City to Surf, and that could have been one of them. The 40^th running this year, the 40^th birthday next year, still going strong.

The City to Surf is Australia’s most famous road race and, often, its best. Long may it run.