Melbourne's Olympics 60 years on: A Column By Len Johnson
Sixty years ago this Monday (21 November), a crowd a quarter of a million strong choked the streets of Melbourne, bringing traffic to a standstill.
“The throng had little motive other than to be there,” a contemporary report ran, “and to...
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...
A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
Cinque Mulini – Gelato Misto, not plain vanilla
Cinque Mulini representatives were easy to spot back in the day. Organisers of the traditional Italian cross-country race usually had a smile on their faces like a kid with an ice-cream.
The Cinque was held the...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
Ladies and Gentleman, we present for your entertainment a battle for one of the heavyweight titles of athletics – the world cross-country championships.
In the red corner, the defending champion, a course over 10 kilometers, multiple laps over a flat (and maybe a...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
When Nike announced recently that its ‘window’ for the attempt to run the first sub-two hour marathon was 5-7 May, an intriguing possibility was raised.
The date dead-centre in the window, 6 May, is the sixty-third anniversary of the breaking of another famous...
A Column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
Cross-country: something for everybody. Just step outside and run.
Invented by cave-dwellers fleeing mastodons, cross-country simply involves running as fast as you can – faster than a pre-historic predator, in any case – for as long as you can, over whatever terrain confronts...
A Column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
Joseph Heller’s incomparable anti-war novel, Catch-22, is populated by a collection of bizarre characters, from the squadron commander, Major Major, to minor minor players.
Take Dunbar, who decided to live as long as possible by making time pass as slowly as possible. Dunbar...
That sinking feeling - Len Johnson Reporting from London - Runner's Tribe
Pink Floyd famously imagined an elephant flying over Battersea Power Station.
I fancied I saw a kitchen sink on the first night of the world championships, flying over Queen Elizabeth Park. They threw everything but the kitchen sink at...
Len Johnson Reporting from the World Champs, London – Runner’s Tribe
Usain Bolt finished his last individual championship race with a touch of class, warmly embracing the winner, Justin Gatlin, and clapping him heartily on the back.
It’s a pity spectators in the London Olympic stadium didn’t show the same amount of...
Len Johnson Reporting from the World Champs, London – Runner’s Tribe
The British are proud of their ability to deliver an ‘event’. London 2012 was the best Olympics ever. The pageantry of the Changing of the Guard. And so forth, and so on - and on, and on.
To a large extent,...
