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.

Signifying What, Exactly? A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe Never hold an inquiry unless you already know the outcome, goes a wise old political maxim. It’s a saying I’ve cited before, but as it is a few years since its last mention I refer to it again. Political inquiries have an...
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...
Jared Tallent’s retirement leaves Australia one champion short in the race walking department. Four Olympic medals – one gold, two silver and one bronze – over three Olympic Games eloquently attest to that. Coincidentally, Melbourne Track Classic, formerly Australia’s most prestigious invitational track and field meeting but now, in this...
Round about the time the coronavirus pandemic went truly global, and was seen to be ‘a thing’ which might adversely impact the Tokyo Olympic Games, a Japanese government minister lamented that the Games were afflicted with a 40-year-curse. “It’s a problem that’s happened every 40 years – it’s the cursed...
A Column By Len Johnson When Linden Hall ran 4:01.78 for 1500 metres at the Prefontaine Classic last weekend, she leapt to third place on the Oceania all-time list. Hall’s fabulous performance was also good enough for third all-time Australian and third all-time Victorian. Fair enough, you might reckon. The opposite of...
Now, after the dramatic championships just staged in Bathurst, it is time to re-visit that question. What’s changed for the better? What’s changed for the worse? Has anything changed at all?
The King Strikes Back: A Column By Len Johnson Recently, I caught up with a film I had missed first, second, third and all subsequent times round – ‘The Madness of King George.’ ‘George’ is King George III of England who apparently went ‘mad’ during his reign, though his symptoms of...
Grand week of 1500 | A Column By Len Johnson Olympic 1500 metres qualifiers for Jenny Blundell, Ryan Gregson and Luke Mathews – it hardly needs saying that it has been a great week for Australian middle-distance running. In fact, taking into consideration Mathews’s earlier qualifying performance at 800 metres, Melissa...
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...
By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe A few days into the world championships in London a friend commented: “Four days, full stadium every session, great competition. So how come all I’m hearing about athletics is negative.” He was right to wonder. Those few days had brought some wonderful competition, all of...
                   

Brilliantly

SAFE!

2022