Zurich’s fabled Weltklasse meeting has often been dubbed “the Olympics in one day.”
It’s a fair call. Usually staged within a week of the conclusion of the year’s major championships – Olympic, world or European – Zurich re-packages the just concluded championship as three hours’ non-stop action. The champions can...
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...
Written by Len Johnson
Not many people could entitle an autobiography My Life in Athletics as appropriately as did Mel Watman in 2018. Even fewer could do so without the slightest hint of pretentiousness and in the complete absence of outstanding athletic achievement.
Yet Mel Watman, sometime club steeplechaser and mid-pack...
I checked the impression that 2021 has been a good year for Australian records by reviewing the pace of national record-breaking in recent years. The figures seem to confirm the impression: Eight athletes set a total of 14 Australian records in 2021, a higher figure for both number of record-breakers and number of records than for any of the previous three years.
A column by Len Johnson
This columnist has always been a big fan of the Rampaging Roy Slaven and H.G. Nelson observation that “too much sport is barely enough”.
But, I wonder, what about when five of the world’s biggest marathons – Berlin, London, Chicago, Boston and New York – are...
A column by Len Johnson
No doubt about it: ask any athlete what is the biggest thing in an Olympic year – even an Olympic year which wasn’t going to be an Olympic year until the Covid-postponement made it one, and they will almost certainly reply: “the Olympic Games”.
Every athlete...
Angela Tanui and I share one thing in common: we both set out to run the Boston Marathon but neither of us got there. On the whole, though, I’d rather share her 2:17:57 marathon personal best.
Seeing Angela’s got the better PB, let’s begin with her story. A couple of...
There I was, standing in the bowels of Hampden Park in my stockinged feet, my shoes with one of the athletes in what could charitably be called ‘my charge’, the other whisked away to heaven knows where by a Glasgow 2014 official and coming back heaven knows when.
Who do you reckon would be Australia’s best athlete?
The answer, I suspect, would depend on how you look at it. Some would say it has to be an Olympic or world champion, a world record breaker, or perhaps both. Others might look at longevity, consistent excellence over a period of years. Then there’s the impact of a single performance: Ralph Doubell’s world record-equalling win in the 800 metres in Mexico City, Herb Elliott’s smashing world record victory in the 1500 in Rome, Cathy Freeman withstanding the crushing build-up of pressure to win the 400 in Sydney.
If, like me, you take a passing interest in the NCAA cross-country championships, it may start and finish with Morgan McDonald’s victory in November 2018. Or maybe you have firm memories of Pat Tiernan’s win in 2016.
