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...
By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
As the clock ticks remorselessly down towards midnight on 23 July, the qualification deadline for the world championships, there are still many athletes chasing the magical entry standards.
Not just scrubbers either. Circumstances, and the narrower qualifying window (1 October, 2016, for most events), can...
The big picture numbers were more stable too. Australia got three medals in Tokyo – Nicola Olyslagers silver in the high jump, Moloney and Barber bronzes in the decathlon and javelin. It was three again in Eugene only this time Patterson and Barber contributed gold with Kennedy getting a bronze.
A column by Len Johnson – Runner’s Tribe
Next year’s world championships in Doha will feature another Breaking 2 event.
Not two hours this time, but two days. To ameliorate the brutally hot conditions of a Persian Gulf summer, the two marathons will start at midnight.
OK, that’s actually not two separate...
Last week was a good week for remembering that sayings become clichés because there is more than an element of truth to them.
First as we – we Victorians, especially – endure a winter without cross-country, suddenly, in the last week of July, cross-country was coming at us from all...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
Ladies and Gentleman, we present for your entertainment a battle for one of the heavyweight titles of athletics – the world cross-country championships.
In the red corner, the defending champion, a course over 10 kilometers, multiple laps over a flat (and maybe a...
Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
Whichever marathon host first had the idea of boosting entries by offering shorter distance options certainly did Australian races a great service.
Take this year’s Gold Coast marathon. Four of Australia’s world championship marathoners are running. But Jess Trengove, Milly Clark, Jeff Hunt and Josh Harris...
Right now – 27 November, as this is written – it is exactly 64 years past the mid-point of the athletics’ program at the Melbourne 1956 Olympic Games.
Sixty-four is not an anniversary we usually celebrate, I’ll grant you, but consider two points of mitigation in that regard. Firstly, the four-year Olympic cycle does not lend itself to the five-year rhythm of most anniversary celebrations: the two waves only coincide once every 20 years, which is way too long between drinks.
Why Zatopek remains relevant: A Column By Len Johnson
Ron Clarke hailed Emil Zatopek as the greatest distance runner who ever lived, not only for his performances, but also for his personality.
Four Olympic gold medals – the 10,000 metres in London in 1948 and the unprecedented, and unequalled, distance treble...
Continuing my meandering paper chase through our world cross-country history, we come to the 1977 and 1979 championships in Dusseldorf and Limerick, respectively. The former saw Australia continue to move up with the debut of three 20-year-olds who would be the nucleus of future teams.
But – whatever happened to the women?
Followers of cross-country are used to seeing young runners make significant debuts. Did someone say Kenenisa Bekele? Or Zola Budd who, like Bekele, was a senior world champion before her 20 th birthday. Bekele, indeed, not only won the short-lived short race in 2001, but did the double a year later, all still three months before turning 20.
