Ask a runner to run a heat and they’ll run a (graded) mile.
That’s the conclusion to be drawn, anyway, from two Victorian meetings in the past two weeks.
First, the Victorian Milers Club staged its opening meeting of the season on 10 November. Almost 250 ran, no fewer than 151...
Busier than santa's elves | A Column By Len Johnson
Ron Clarke won three successive Zatopek 10,000s at the start of the 1960s, setting his first world records in 1963.
Clarke likewise won the last two Zatopeks as the decade concluded. Which prompts the question – what happened in the years...
Rio 2016, have you met Melbourne 1956?
A Column By Len Johnson
“Your projects have been changed several times. Your sites, even including the main stadium, have been changed several times . . . you are contemplating changing the rowing to a site I have never heard of.
“There seems to...
Ticking over into olympic year | A Column By Len Johnson
New Year’s Eve signals the end of one year and, if you’ve got the stamina, the arrival of the next. For athletics fans, though, there’s something special about New Year’s Eve in a pre-Olympic year.
The year 2016 will not...
Ryan Hall: best actor in a supporting role | A Column By Len Johnson
Ryan Hall never quite achieved the stardom for which he seemed destined, but if the best actor Oscar somehow eluded him, the American marathoner certainly has a sound claim to a gong as best actor in...
Thanks Coach | A Column By Len Johnson
There’s probably almost as many different athlete-coach relationships in athletics as there are athletes and coaches.
Some athletes have a coach from the time they start out in the sport as a junior. Usually, that’s a club coach. Others never have one, though...
When you can win by losing | A Column By Len Johnson
The descriptors applied to selection trials overwhelmingly emphasise the drama. Cut-throat, sudden-death, fourth is the worst possible place – insert your cliché of choice.
Seldom is it mentioned that trials, along with heats and qualifying rounds, are one of...
Dreaded Lurgi ends Rio hopes | A Column By Len Johnson
Forty years after going to my first Olympic Games I have had to reluctantly accept that I have no chance of making the team for Rio 2016.
I arrived in Sydney on Thursday, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and thinking I...
Turn up the thermostat | A Column By Len Johnson
As a lawyer, Dick Pound has never been able to resist a pithy summation.
A few weeks ago, the current head of WADA was pontificating on Maria Sharapova. Critiquing the Russian tennis star’s defence of the failure by either her, or...
Best marathon ever (except for the others) | A Column By Len Johnson
If you think that the quickest marathon is automatically the best marathon, then don’t bother to read further. Save yourself some time.
Eliud Kipchoge won the elite men’s division of the London Marathon last Sunday in two hours...
