Linden Hall runs a 1500 metres in a time beginning with ‘three’. Rohan Browning runs the 100 metres in a time ending in ‘05’. Sometimes it’s just all about the numbers.
Hall becomes the first Australian woman to break four minutes for 1500 metres. Browning hits the Tokyo Olympic automatic...
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...
Jessica Hull broke the Australian record for 1500 metres in Berlin on Sunday (13 February), taking it down to 4:00.42 in finishing third behind Britain’s pair of Lauras, Muir and Weightman.
By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
I read an interesting blog this week which suggested the narrative around women’s sports was in need of urgent change.
Sally Bergesen, founder of the Seattle, USA-based apparel company Oiselle, wrote: “when you look at the dominant narratives for female athletes, it becomes clear that...
Sixty years ago, on 6 September, 1960, Herb Elliott won a gold medal in the 1500 metres at the Rome Olympic Games in a world record three minutes 35.6 seconds.
Sounds a little mundane when you write it like that, doesn’t it. There was nothing even remotely mundane about Elliott’s...
Watching the men’s 5000 unfold, and the women’s the previous day, caused me to wonder whether track distance athletes have lost the ability to race, to vary their tactics in the search for a winning formula.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen took most of the headlines on the second day of the Diamond League final. A win over a classy field in a sub-3:30 world lead will tend to do that.
A column by Len Johnson
My good friend Brian Lenton has asked me to do a column on his latest book: Thredbo, 50 Years Running, 1968-2017.
By way of disclaimer, this is as much of a disclaimer as you are going to get. As Brian once told me in another context:...
By any measure, 2020 has been an ordinary year. So many of the sporting milestones which punctuate our calendar either went uncelebrated or, when they could proceed, were “celebrated” in eerie silence.
One Australian running tradition was maintained, however. The calendar year ended with a resounding performance at 10,000 metres, for which we must give grateful thanks to Patrick Tiernan.
For the first time in over 50 years, the annual Zatopek 10,000 metres races did not take place. Happily, they will instead be raced in January, 2021. But Tiernan found a December 10,000 race to run, at “The Track Meet”, in San Juan Capistrano, and was able to enjoy his own private celebration after setting an Australian record 27:22.55.
Tiernan finished second to Eric Jenkins of the US, who won in 27:22.06. His time was also an Oceania record. San Juan was formerly a Spanish mission in Capistrano, famous for the annual return of migratory swallows each northern hemisphere spring. Truly, all Tiernan’s swallows came home to roost on 5 December, 2020.
Hello, hello, hello. Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
(Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb)
When World Athletics adopted a system of qualification based on rankings for its own world championships and the Olympic Games, which it conducts under the auspices of the...
