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.

The first time I encountered Maurie Plant was at the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games. I heard Maurie before I saw him (a not uncommon occurrence over the next 43 years). I was on the concourse just inside the ticket entrance, Maurie was high above on the entry ramp to the...
Runner's Tribe It is a good time to be an emerging high jumper, an even better time to be Brandon Starc. With the world champion Mutaz Essa Barshim sidelined by injury, and the handful of other men who have recently challenged 2.40 metres, and beyond, variously sidelined or not jumping similar...
A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe It’s customary to include a disclaimer as a footnote, but let’s declare this one upfront. I love the Fukuoka marathon and, despite many changes in the marathon over the years, still rate it up with the very best of non-championship races. Times may...
What more can Kipchoge do? A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe It’s that end-of-the-year time when we (some of us, anyway) turn our attention to who might be the athlete of the year. AOY as the most common abbreviation goes. The IAAF AOYs will be announced this weekend. At the...
If one word defined the running career of Roger Gilbert Bannister, it would have to be the number ‘three’. Words came before it in Norris McWhirter’s ‘spontaneous’, rehearsed-in-the-bathtub-the-night-before, announcement of the result of the mile in the Oxford v AAA meeting on 6 May, 1954. Words followed, too, but they...
JULIAN SPENCE: Written by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe Members Only You’re not far into a conversation with Julian Spence when he observes: “I’m a bit of a running nerd.” One aspect of this is an eclectic library of running literature, of which more later. Next, consider Nick Earl’s account of...
About the only English people feeling less than devastated about England’s World Cup exit are the people staging England’s World Cup this weekend (14-15 July). How’s that, you ask. Well, England lost in football’s World Cup semi-finals to Croatia and won’t be further involved, the third/fourth place playoff aside. Instead...
Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe Sometimes, when we laud athletes for consistency, it seems we are damning them with faint praise. It’s as if excellence can’t really be excellence if it is repeatable. There’s some logic to that. Things cannot be outstanding unless they stand out. What they usually stand out...
Forty years ago, at the first world championships in Helsinki, there was little doubt which athlete was “the face of the championships.”
A Column By Len Johnson In announcing her retirement this week, Alana Boyd got the timing just right. Timing is everything in Boyd’s event, the pole vault. It is no good having the height before the crossbar, no good having it after. For a clearance, you must have the height at...
                   

Brilliantly

SAFE!

2022