A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
One fan's race is another fan's procession
Lots of people characterised the Rio men’s Olympic 1500 metres final as “boring”. All I can say is that for a boring race it continues to generate plenty of passionate discussion.
The latest to-and-fro I’ve seen on...
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...
Tiernan fastest Australian 10,000 debutant
A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
For those of us yet to meet a statistic we don’t like*, there were some interesting figures surrounding Patrick Tiernan’s Zatopek win.
One, Tiernan’s was the fastest debut 10,000 by an Australian male. Two, he became the first Australian...
What more can Kipchoge do?
A Column By Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
It’s that end-of-the-year time when we (some of us, anyway) turn our attention to who might be the athlete of the year. AOY as the most common abbreviation goes.
The IAAF AOYs will be announced this weekend. At the...
Tiernan echoes of Melbourne ‘56
A Column By Len Johnson
It might be drawing a long bow, but there’s nothing wrong with drawing long bows: when Patrick Tiernan became NCAA cross-country champion last weekend I saw a link going back to the Melbourne Olympic Games 60 years earlier.
How so? Well, Tiernan...
Melbourne's Olympics 60 years on: A Column By Len Johnson
Sixty years ago this Monday (21 November), a crowd a quarter of a million strong choked the streets of Melbourne, bringing traffic to a standstill.
“The throng had little motive other than to be there,” a contemporary report ran, “and to...
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...
Cargo bolt comes up the river: A Column By Len Johnson
Cargo cult mentality refers to a belief by some Melanesian islanders that all their world issues would be resolved by the landing of an airplane carrying supplies and goods.
This belief grew in the 19th and early 20th centuries and...
A Column By Len Johnson
In announcing her retirement this week, Alana Boyd got the timing just right.
Timing is everything in Boyd’s event, the pole vault. It is no good having the height before the crossbar, no good having it after. For a clearance, you must have the height at...
Bizarre pacing incidents of our time | A Column By Len Johnson
When a vehicle pulls up alongside late in a marathon, you might be expecting someone to suggest it’s time to get inside. You wouldn’t expect a pacemaker to emerge.
Yet that’s exactly what happened in the Toronto Waterfront Marathon...
