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.

Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. Janus presided over the beginning and ending of...
Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe Mary Keitany has yet to put her two best marathon halves together into a whole. When she does, as my old coach used to say, she could be dangerous. In London last year, Keitany ran a 66:54 first half of the marathon as she set out...
As the Olympic women’s high jump drew to an absorbing conclusion in Tokyo, somewhere Wilson Kipketer may have been smiling. Australian watchers maybe not so much. Of course, we were passionately barracking for Nicola McDermott as she took the lead at two metres, set a new Australian and Oceania record...
A few years ago, a friend invited me to address a primary school book club about The Landy Era. The audience was year six students – so, 12 years old for the most part – and their parents. I’d noticed some sport publications on the library display shelf, including one...
Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe One of the beneficiaries of the decision to compete in Moscow was Rob de Castella, who made his first of four Olympic teams in the marathon. ‘Deek’ finished tenth in the marathon in Moscow, his first experience of the surging sort of running required to win...
At the World Indoor Tour meeting in Birmingham, Catriona Bisset chased home Keely Hodgkinson in the 800 metres, running 1:59.46. That sliced a massive 2.39 seconds off the previous Australian record which was set by Tamsyn Manou in the heats at the world indoor championships in Valencia. Manou went on to win the gold medal in the final.
When you can win by losing | A Column By Len Johnson The descriptors applied to selection trials overwhelmingly emphasise the drama. Cut-throat, sudden-death, fourth is the worst possible place – insert your cliché of choice. Seldom is it mentioned that trials, along with heats and qualifying rounds, are one of...
When Abbey Caldwell became the second-fastest Australian woman over 800 metres in Sydney on 11 March, she renewed an age-old debate among those of who follow the middle distances. To wit: is it better to be coming down to the 800 from the 1500 metres end of the spectrum, or moving up from the 400 metres end.
The first time I encountered Maurie Plant was at the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games. I heard Maurie before I saw him (a not uncommon occurrence over the next 43 years). I was on the concourse just inside the ticket entrance, Maurie was high above on the entry ramp to the...
When Stewart McSweyn and Catriona Bisset checked in at the Australian championships, they picked up bibs bearing their names. They might just as well have borne targets. Each athlete faced dangerous rivals whose race plan would largely consist of hanging on as long as possible, then try to get past...
                   

Brilliantly

SAFE!

2022