On day seven, Budapest’s national athletics centre turned into the house of stoush. Over at the triple jump, Yulimar Rojas got off the canvas to win her fourth straight title by knock-out.
Jim Dunaway, who passed away earlier this year, was one of the giants of track and field journalism.
Or perhaps he was a dinosaur, as in ‘we won’t see the likes of him again’, a creature from a past age, rather than in the literal sense.
Mostly, he was just Jim....
Len Johnson is currently in Rio, Brazil covering the games as he see's them.
In the long run, you’re dead | A Column By Len Johnson
Mo Farah slices you up with the delicacy of a surgeon, Almaz Ayana bludgeons you with a broadsword, but in the long run against these...
Linden Hall runs a 1500 metres in a time beginning with ‘three’. Rohan Browning runs the 100 metres in a time ending in ‘05’. Sometimes it’s just all about the numbers.
Hall becomes the first Australian woman to break four minutes for 1500 metres. Browning hits the Tokyo Olympic automatic...
Catriona Bisset made her intentions plain in the final of the 800 metres at the Australian championships. Competing in her first national final, she grabbed the lead early and front-ran her way to her first national title.
Bisset’s recent runs have mostly been like that. She ran from the front...
But that was before the whole sport was hit by a missile with the news that Peter Bol had returned an “AAF (adverse analytical finding) for Erythropoietin Receptor Agonists (ERA): rEPO (rEPO).” Synthetic EPO, in other words, which is a proscribed substance.
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...
Catriona Bisset has broken the Australian record for 800 metres.
On Sunday, 21 July, at the Muller Games Diamond League in London’s Olympic stadium (and West Ham United’s home ground), Bisset finished second to Lynsey Sharp in one minute 58.78 seconds, slicing 0.22 off Charlene Rendina’s long-standing national record.
Had this...
Len Johnson Reporting from the World Champs, London – Runner’s Tribe
Usain Bolt finished his last individual championship race with a touch of class, warmly embracing the winner, Justin Gatlin, and clapping him heartily on the back.
It’s a pity spectators in the London Olympic stadium didn’t show the same amount of...
Len Johnson Reporting from the World Champs, London – Runner’s Tribe
Day six at the world championships and it was one of those this way, thataway, haven’t we been here before scenarios so beloved of film directors. Sliding doors, chances taken, chances missed – that sort of thing.
One place we definitely...
