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.

It won’t be easy making the team to represent Australia in the men’s middle-distance events at the World U20 championships in Lima, Peru later this year.
Traveling in a fried-out Kombi On a hippie trail, head full of zombie - Down Under, Men at Work, 1981 What do you do when you're trekking around and in need of transport? Well, if it’s the 1970s and you are Australians in Europe, you get yourself a Kombi van. Many young Aussies...
Marjorie Jackson, who celebrated her 90th birthday on 13 September, was Australia’s first athletics superstar. Our first women’s Olympic gold medallist, our first women’s world record holder, Jackson surged to international recognition with a double in the 100 and 200 metres at the Helsinki 1952 Olympic Games. She would have...
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.
Remember when sport and politics didn’t mix (Yes: I know they always have, but let’s pretend the perfect world in which they don’t actually exists). Seeking some respite from the tedium of an Australian election campaign that has not yet left – and probably will not leave – the tit-for-tat...
The long and winding road the leads to . . . nowhere A Column By Len Johnson Monday, 23 November, was Labour and Thanksgiving Day in Japan. The annual public holiday for commemorating labour and production and giving thanks was also the day on which the Chiba International Ekiden Relay would...
Meb just keeps bobbing up | A Column By Len Johnson I suppose I had seen him earlier, but I first became aware of Mebrahtom Keflezighi when he bobbed up for the silver medal in the Athens 2004 Olympic marathon. Keflezighi, who is the subject of a Runner’s Tribe video interview...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe When I boarded a plane bound for Alice Springs a couple of weeks ago, the following things held true: no-one had run a marathon in under two hours; Paula Radcliffe’s world record marathon remained almost a full two minutes outside the reach...
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...
If you want to change the country, change the government, Paul Keating once said. Or to put it the other way around, if you change the government, you change the country. Experience unparalleled comfort and agility with Tarkine running shoes, crafted for runners who seek the perfect blend of...
                   

Brilliantly

SAFE!

2022