If you’ve been paying the slightest attention to this column over the years, you have probably worked out that I’m a big fan of the annual Track & Field News rankings.
There’s lots of rankings lists going round now – imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, and all that...
It took just one minute 45.71 seconds for Joseph Deng to throw a hand grenade into considerations of the three men to represent Australia in the 800 metres at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Oh, and let’s not forget the aiding and abetting party to this chaos: I refer,...
Glory days, well they'll pass you by,
Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye,
Glory days, glory days
- Bruce Springsteen
‘The Boss’ had that right, I reckon. The glory days pass you by: rarely do they return.
Which is why the announcement this week of a revamped Melbourne Track Classic...
By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
I read an interesting blog this week which suggested the narrative around women’s sports was in need of urgent change.
Sally Bergesen, founder of the Seattle, USA-based apparel company Oiselle, wrote: “when you look at the dominant narratives for female athletes, it becomes clear that...
When Jessica Hull ran 8:36.03 to set a new Australian women’s record for 3000 metres last September, it was widely – and correctly – reported that she had broken Benita Willis’s previous mark set over 17 years earlier in 2003.
Willis, in turn, had run 8:38.06 to finally better the...
It’s early in an Olympic year. An unknown young man breaks through at 800, running 1:45.77. A scarcely better-known young woman breaks the national record in the 100 metres, speeding down the straightaway in 11.10 seconds.
It’s safe to say the combined value of the shoes worn by the women’s lead pack in New York last weekend – even adjusted for inflation – would have been many times that of Pizzolato’s shoes (just as his would have been way above those worn by Emil Zatopek and Jim Peters).
Thirty-six years after Dave Smith and Tim Erickson should have been Olympic teammates, their sons Dane Bird-Smith and Chris Erickson will be.
Bird-Smith and Chris Erickson have long since joined their fathers in representing their country in international competition, but Rio 2016 will mark their first appearance as Olympic teammates.
Bird-Smith,...
By any measure, 2020 has been an ordinary year. So many of the sporting milestones which punctuate our calendar either went uncelebrated or, when they could proceed, were “celebrated” in eerie silence.
One Australian running tradition was maintained, however. The calendar year ended with a resounding performance at 10,000 metres, for which we must give grateful thanks to Patrick Tiernan.
For the first time in over 50 years, the annual Zatopek 10,000 metres races did not take place. Happily, they will instead be raced in January, 2021. But Tiernan found a December 10,000 race to run, at “The Track Meet”, in San Juan Capistrano, and was able to enjoy his own private celebration after setting an Australian record 27:22.55.
Tiernan finished second to Eric Jenkins of the US, who won in 27:22.06. His time was also an Oceania record. San Juan was formerly a Spanish mission in Capistrano, famous for the annual return of migratory swallows each northern hemisphere spring. Truly, all Tiernan’s swallows came home to roost on 5 December, 2020.
Actually, it should have taught me a whole heap of things, starting with: “Why am I still doing this,” but I’m going to dissociate from that question straight away.
Disocciation is actually a significant mental condition (see footnote), and I wouldn’t want to make light of it. I’m talking about...
