Len Johnson Pg 3

BY Len Johnson Here is the news on Kenenisa Bekele: he remains motivated, he wants to keep on improving, he is enjoying his running. This is very good news indeed _ if you are a distance running fan....

 

By Len Johnson One of my favourite press conference stories concerns the great Ethiopian runner Miruts Yifter after he won the 1980 Moscow Olympic 10,000 metres. I wasn't there, but the story goes that...

 

By Len Johnson In Amman a few short months ago, Linet Masai lost a world cross-country title to teammate Florence Kiplagat, the race decided by the climb up the brutal last hill. Tonight, in Berlin's...

 

 

 

By LEN JOHNSON Cross-country is at a crossroads, but is it sinking down? At the IAAF Congress here, delegates voted to change the frequency of the world cross-country championships _ the oldest stand-alone...

 

By LEN JOHNSON You would be tempted to say that Caster Semenya, the 18-year-old South African who has made an amazing break-through in women’s 800 metres, could not possibly come from obscurity...

 

By LEN JOHNSON Hurdles races are lost just as often as they are won. Remember Lolo Jones in Beijing last year? At the eighth hurdle, Jones could have been tuning up for The Star-Spangled Banner. She had...

 

By LEN JOHNSON I chanced upon Fabrice Lapierre on the night of the Beijing Olympic long jump qualifier. An hour or two earlier he had missed making the final by just four centimetres. My inadequate consoling...

 

By LEN JOHNSON When Steve Hooker won three consecutive competitions at six metres or higher to start his 2009 year, his performances prompted talk of breaking Sergey Bubka’s world record. Hooker...

 

 

 

By LEN JOHNSON Most of their careers, Jeremy Wariner and Sanya Richards have been one-lap wonders. Right now, however, they are one-lap runners that you wonder about. You wonder whether Wariner, who dominated...

 

By LEN JOHNSON Sometimes a hurdles race is about more than 10 hurdles. With Jana Pittman-Rawlinson, it sometimes seems a hurdles race is rarely just about 10 hurdles. Having raced on just one of three...

 

By LEN JOHNSON A funny thing has happened in Oslo the past two years. That’s funny as in peculiar, not as in ‘Ha-Ha’. Since 2006, the Bislett Games has not had a men’s distance...

 

 

By LEN JOHNSON When you can't be in two places at once, sometimes you're better off being in neither. That's about the way I feel this last weekend of June as the Jamaican national championships are staged...