Let’s keep this on the record, shall we.
Having considered recently how much credibility should be given to some of the world records set this year (Please Buy This Record, RT 18 October), let’s look this time at the quantity of records set by Australian duo Jessica Hull and Stewart McSweyn.
Hull took down Benita Willis’s national record for 5000 metres when she ran 14:43.80 in Monaco and then Linden Hall’s national mark for 1500 with a 4:00.42 in Berlin. Finally, she ran 8:36.03 for 3000 in Doha to slice a couple of seconds off Willis’s former 3000 record. Earlier in the year, Hull ran 4:04.14 in Boston to take the indoor 1500 record from Melissa Duncan.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say, and the idea of the Ekiden relay has long since gone international.
Well, at least to Victoria, anyway. Athletics Victoria paid homage – or should that be hommage – to the tradition of Japan’s road relays by adding an Ekiden to...
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...
So; there it is. A third Australian city will host a summer Olympics with the news that Brisbane is the likely host for the 2032 Olympic Games.
Brisbane is not yet the designated host. Rather, the Queensland capital has been granted (checks notes) “preferred bidder status” on a list of...
By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
The IAAF has shelved its plan to base qualification for the Doha 2019 world championships on its new rankings system.
Instead, the rankings, which IAAF president Sebastian Coe acknowledged to be “a complex system”, will be trialled through 2019 so that athletes and federations can...
Brett Robinson, Jessica Hull and Stewart McSweyn made it a good week for Australian distance running this week, but it’s the sometimes under-rated Robinson who should be singled out.
It was hard not to notice Hull and McSweyn, who did their magic at the Melbourne Track Classic. The meeting may...
About the only English people feeling less than devastated about England’s World Cup exit are the people staging England’s World Cup this weekend (14-15 July).
How’s that, you ask. Well, England lost in football’s World Cup semi-finals to Croatia and won’t be further involved, the third/fourth place playoff aside. Instead...
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...
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...
World cross-country 1981-85: amid extraordinary scenes in Madrid, Robert de Castella takes Australia into the individual top-10.
A year out from Bathurst 2021, Len Johnson continues his look at Australia in the world cross-country championships.
The men’s race at the 1981 world cross-country championships in Madrid finished amid extraordinary scenes as...
