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A Column by Len Johnson
Len Johnson was The Melbourne Age athletics writer for over 20 years, covering five Olympics, 10 world championships and five Commonwealth Games. He is the author of The Landy Era, From Nowhere to the Top of the World, and a former national class distance runner (2.19.32 marathon) who trained with Chris Wardlaw and Robert de Castella.
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November 23, 2009
By Len Johnson. Craig Mottram took a strong first step back into international competition, running...
November 20, 2009
By Len Johnson. In a landmark case, the US Supreme Court once ruled that the most stringent protection...
October 29, 2009
By Len Johnson. In The Perfect Mile, author Neal Bascomb relates at one point how Les Perry would give...
October 23, 2009
By Len Johnson. Has a chink been revealed in Usain Bolt’s armour? Playing in a charity cricket...
October 16, 2009
By Len Johnson. Had Randy Newman been a runner, he may well have penned the lines
October 8, 2009
By Len Johnson. It’s the eve of the Melbourne marathon, which reminds me of the time Bill Rodgers...
October 2, 2009
When Steve Hooker produced that epic clearance at 5.90 metres with just his second jump of the world...
September 19, 2009
By LEN JOHNSON History most of us interact with it three ways. We make our bit of it, small or large as the case may be; we become history; in between times, we show some interest in it. That interest...
September 11, 2009
By LEN JOHNSON We pretty well began these columns writing about what a wacky event the 800 metres was and how it had replaced unpredictable events like the pole vault as the flakiest on the championship...
September 7, 2009
By Len Johnson Watching Dathan Ritzenhein run his US record 12:56.27 for 5000 metres in Zurich a week ago, I was as excited as the next person. It wasn't just the result _ grand enough on its own anyway....
August 29, 2009
By LEN JOHNSON Sometimes you wonder what goes through an athlete's mind, if indeed anything does at all. What, for example, went through Yelena Isinbayeva's mind when she took three attempts to win the...
August 28, 2009
By LEN JOHNSON Zurich has often been characterised as 'the Olympics in one day'. I've never liked the comparison. To me, it is manifestly unfair to the Olympics and to Zurich. In culinary terms ( and...
August 25, 2009
Ariane Friedrich took the spotlight for the Berlin 2009 world championships with impeccable timing. No better than seventh in last year's Olympics, Friedrich chose Berlin's Golden League meeting in June...
August 24, 2009
By Len Johnson When Kenenisa Bekele defeated Bernard Lagat in the 5000 metres to complete the distance double on the final day of the world championships, it was a case of a man who tried to win the gold...
August 23, 2009
By Len Johnson Has Sammy Wanjiru changed the conventional template for running a championship marathon? The question must be asked after yesterday's world championship marathon emulated Wanjiru's audacious...
August 22, 2009
For six days, the world championships have been about letting your head go. On night seven, as real storms raged around the stadium _ not surreal, Lightning Bolt storms _ lightning flashed, thunder rolled,...
August 20, 2009
By LEN JOHNSON You see plenty of shoeboxes around a track and field championships as shoe companies hand out sponsor product like confetti at a wedding. You don't expect to see the men's 1500 raced in...
August 19, 2009
By Len Johnson For a home crowd of Berliners, nothing was going to surpass a German gold medal. So Steffi Nerius topped the bill with her first throw of the competition win in the women's javelin.
July 13, 2009
By LEN JOHNSON The 800 metres is the flakiest event in track and field. It's official. The demise of Pamela Jelimo _ even if it proves no more lasting than the Olympic champ's next race _ confirms it...
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