Through the 2005 winter in Melbourne a group of middle-distance supporters coalesced around the idea of doing something to promote middle-distance running. Over several meetings the concept of a Victorian Milers Club was formulated. Now, as I write this, Vic Milers is on the eve of meeting number 100. It is...
Sunday 24 January 2026, Boston, and for the second time in two years two male Americans set world records at the same indoor meeting. In 2025, at the Millrose Games meeting held in the New York Armory (apt venue for explosive performances!), Grant Fisher ran 7:22.91 for 3000 metres, eclipsing...
One bite at the annual rankings compiled by Track & Field News is never enough. As foreshadowed, then, here we are back for seconds. Last time I wrote about the Australians who had been ranked in the top 10 in an individual event in 2025. There were 10 in all,...
When someone experiences a huge amount of good fortune or happiness all at the same time we often say all their Christmases have come at once. I’m not sure if all my Christmases came at once on 10 January 2026, but at least two of them did which is something...
A Column By Len Johnson Years ago, there were many sets of numbers I had committed to memory. The world all-time list of sub-2:10 marathoners, for example. The top 20 Australians (it helped that my own modest 2:19:32 was on that list!). It also helped that the weren’t that many numbers to...
We’ve barely recovered from New Year’s Eve. And now we’re only a week away from a world cross-country. A common complaint among the more ‘mature’ – don’t call us old! - is that modern life moves too fast, but a world cross-country 10 days into the new year? Too...
What is it with the marathon. Seems like every December a platoon of Australians heads off to Spain and someone – or two – produces an Australian record. Not just anywhere in Spain. Just as the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain, the marathon records stay mainly in...
It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Black Friday sales – the shopping confection which serves as the sprint race to the Christmas F1 Grand Prix – out of the way, things winding down. Of course, there’s always a bit of athletics to December. But this week, suddenly...
Back in the day when ‘Deek’ – sometimes known as Robert de Castella – was king of Australian distance running, Canberra’s Stromlo Forest was his domain. The mobs of kangaroos living in the pine forests knew as much about his training as anyone else. You didn’t see the kangaroos so...
When the women’s 800 metres was restored to the Olympic program in Rome in 1960, Australia had immediate success – Brenda Jones taking the silver medal just eight hundredths of a second behind Lyudmila Shevtsova of the Soviet Union. Success, though not of the medal variety, also came when the...
