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.

A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe And the people passing by, stare in wild wonder . . .* My 2017 night of staring in wild wonder was 8 August: the venue, London Olympic Stadium. The race is the men’s 800 metres final. Pierre-Ambroise Bosse is in the field. He is...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe What if Australia hosts a Commonwealth Games and we don’t win. Not across all the sports. Not in athletics, either. Well, it can’t be ‘the blackest day in Australian sport’. That moniker has already been gifted – if that’s the right word –...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe One year ends and another begins, just as it has for the past 40 years, at Falls Creek. What were once training camps have now become family holidays, but otherwise little has changed since my first visit here in 1978-79. Actually, lots of...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe Medals are not easy to get at world championships. Australia had to wait till the ninth day of the world championships to get an athlete to the medal ceremony, but when one medal finally arrived, like London’s famous red buses, another was...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe Only one event has had its Gold Coast 2018 trial and already selectors and athletes are in a quandary. Actually, make that two quandaries if we count the news that Australia may be restricted to a quota of 73 athletes in the able-bodied...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe In 1985, aided by nothing other than his own ambition, Steve Jones ran away from a field of the world’s top marathoners to win the Chicago marathon in 2:07:13. Jones was white, Welsh and 30 years old. He had never done long stints...
A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe It’s customary to include a disclaimer as a footnote, but let’s declare this one upfront. I love the Fukuoka marathon and, despite many changes in the marathon over the years, still rate it up with the very best of non-championship races. Times may...
A column by Len Johnson – Runner’s Tribe One of the great features of the build-up to the Zatopek 10,000 used to be seeing the main contenders showing their form with a race, maybe even two races, over 5000 metres. Let’s commemorate two great distance runners by calling it the Pre-Zatopek...
A column by Len Johnson – Runner’s Tribe Could it be that the year’s best performance in the marathon came in the equivalent of a ‘beer mile’? Well, it could just be. That’s if you’re prepared to accord Nike’s Breaking 2 project at least as much credibility as an event in...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe The IAAF has announced a partnership to create an official world rankings system as a qualification mechanism to drive the sport’s annual competition system. A short press release from IAAF HQ indicated a memorandum of understanding had been signed with Elite Ltd (the...
                   

Brilliantly

SAFE!

2022