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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.

But that was before the whole sport was hit by a missile with the news that Peter Bol had returned an “AAF (adverse analytical finding) for Erythropoietin Receptor Agonists (ERA): rEPO (rEPO).” Synthetic EPO, in other words, which is a proscribed substance.
James ‘Jim’ Bailey: 21 July, 1929-31 March, 2020 Jim Bailey, who died in America on 31 March, was a runner of undoubted talent. Yet, despite making an Olympic and a Commonwealth Games team and winning two national titles over 880 yards, Bailey is, and will continue to be, remembered for...
Is Matthew Denny now Australia’s best male athlete? Undeniably so, I’d say, a judgement that was true even before he burnished already considerable laurels by winning the discus at last weekend’s (16-17 September) Diamond League final. Victory merely confirmed his status.
What a week. First cricket, and a ball-tampering scandal which has now resulted in the Australian captain, vice-captain and a hapless junior player facing suspensions and the coach resigning. Second, amidst all the cricket turmoil, came the raising by a senior government minister of the prospect – quickly shut down,...
  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Tarkine (takayna) (@tarkinerunning) Oslo – the Melbourne of the north | A column by Len Johnson A long time ago when we were all good young distance athletes, someone – Chris Wardlaw, I think – dubbed Melbourne the Oslo of the South....
The past couple of years of Australian women’s 800 has been all about Catriona Bisset. Bisset broke through the two-minute barrier in 2019, before breaking Charlene Rendina’s long-standing national record – set in 1976 - in London that same year.
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 –...
Since you ask, the five male nominees are Kelvin Kiptum, Neeraj Chopra, Noah Lyles, Ryan Crouser and Mondo Duplantis; the female nominees are Tigst Assefa, Femke Bol, Faith Kipyegon, Shericka Jackson and Yulimar Rojas.
It’s too early for most of us to be thinking about the Brisbane 2032 Olympic marathons just yet (though it’s worth pointing out that new men’s world record holder Kelvin Kiptum will be ‘only’ 32 years old then).
  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Tarkine (takayna) (@tarkinerunning) Fair stands the wind - or does it? | A column by Len Johnson On Monday, 18 January 1932, sprinter Jim Carlton rocketed around the curved grass track on the Sydney Cricket Ground to win the Australian championships 220 yards...