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.

It was the dust what done it. In Eugene for a few days at the world championships. Arriving in time to just miss Eleanor Patterson’s amazing win in the high jump. But I did get to Pre’s Trail. The wood bark surfaced track around the parklands of Eugene named after its...
So, what’s the deal with the 800 metres? No, not channelling Seinfeld, just wondering about the current state of Australian 800-meter running. To some extent, a large extent, it’s the same deal as always. Gun goes BANG! Runners go FAST! Winner is the one who slows up the least* as everyone...
A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe It’s customary to include a disclaimer as a footnote, but let’s declare this one upfront. I love the Fukuoka marathon and, despite many changes in the marathon over the years, still rate it up with the very best of non-championship races. Times may...
From Rabat to Kampala A Colum By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe This Sunday, the Australian teams to contest the world cross-country championships leave for Kampala. It is just on 42 years since Australia first contested the event in Rabat, Morocco, on 16 March, 1975. Now, 42 might seem a strange anniversary...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe I don’t know if the crack of Wayde Van Niekerk’s anterior cruciate ligament rupturing was heard all the way around the world, but it certainly reverberated from Cape Town at least as far as Queensland’s Gold Coast. At one stroke, Van Niekerk tore...
Kelsey-Lee Barber has made quite the habit in recent times of ‘gazumping’ her opponents in the javelin, coming up with an unanswerable effort in the final rounds of a competition to snatch a medal, usually of the golden variety. In Doha in 2019, where the air-conditioning kept throwers cool as...
Period of Adjustment, the debut feature film for director George Roy Hill, was based on the Tennessee Williams stage play of the same name about two married couples experiencing relationship problems. A period of adjustment is what is faced by athletics – all sport, in fact – in adapting to...
Let’s keep this on the record, shall we. Having considered recently how much credibility should be given to some of the world records set this year (Please Buy This Record, RT 18 October), let’s look this time at the quantity of records set by Australian duo Jessica Hull and Stewart McSweyn. Hull took down Benita Willis’s national record for 5000 metres when she ran 14:43.80 in Monaco and then Linden Hall’s national mark for 1500 with a 4:00.42 in Berlin. Finally, she ran 8:36.03 for 3000 in Doha to slice a couple of seconds off Willis’s former 3000 record. Earlier in the year, Hull ran 4:04.14 in Boston to take the indoor 1500 record from Melissa Duncan.
Len Johnson Reporting from the World Champs, London – Runner’s Tribe Eight years ago the world seemed to be at Dani Stevens (then Dani Samuels) feet. On a rainy night in Berlin, she handled the difficult conditions far better than her more experienced rivals to become, at 21, the youngest winner...
Ah, Oslo! Remember those Scandinavia nights. Warm but rarely hot. Calm conditions. Great tradition of middle and long-distance track running.
                   

Brilliantly

SAFE!

2022