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.

The first time I went to Japan to run the Fukuoka marathon my feet didn’t touch the ground until the five-kilometer point of the race.
By Len Johnson reporting from the Gold Coast You will find Nick Hough and Alex Hulley side by side in the Australian Commonwealth Games Media Guide, but hands up anyone who expected to find them, if not exactly next to each other, one after the other on the medals’ podium. Stranger...
I can’t remember whether Ingrid Kristiansen called me, or I called her. But there was a phone call in March, 1988, the week before the women’s world 15km road race championship in Adelaide. Kristiansen was training at Falls Creek in preparation for a tilt at two world titles within six...
With most of Australia gripped in a heatwave, how’re you going to cool down. How else than by talking cross-country. We’re coming up to the ‘one year to go’ date for the twice-postponed World Cross-Country Championships, now set down for 18 February, 2023. I would have said “settled on” but when Olympic Games and world championships have been postponed during these crazy times, all schedules are aspirational.
What a race that was last week (Thursday 22). Cameron Myers leads home a stellar 1500 metres field - including 2022 world champion Jake Wightman – runs the fastest time ever by an Australian man on Australian soil, leads six other Australians and four internationals, under 3:40.c
So, with support from World Athletics and the Victorian government, the Melbourne Track Classic has been picked up, dusted off and will be presented at Lakeside Stadium on 23 February as the Maurie Plant Meet (MPM), a World Athletics Continental Gold meeting.
Amy Cashin won the women’s race and then, 15 minutes later, her brother Liam made a significant break-through in finishing third in the men’s event.
Any 15-year-old teenager can tell you there is a frustratingly-long list of things you cannot do. Can’t drink. Can’t drive. Can’t vote. Can’t take out a loan to buy a car to drive to a pub to buy a drink or drive to a polling booth to vote even...
A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe Cinque Mulini – Gelato Misto, not plain vanilla Cinque Mulini representatives were easy to spot back in the day. Organisers of the traditional Italian cross-country race usually had a smile on their faces like a kid with an ice-cream. The Cinque was held the...
Australian decathlete Cedric Dubler’s encouragement of his teammate Ashley Moloney during the closing stages of the Tokyo Olympic decathlon has been acknowledged as an iconic moment in Olympic sport.