If you know a bit about Australian marathon history, you will recall that Lisa Ondieki is our only Olympic marathon medallist. Her silver medal in Seoul in 1988 behind the great Rosa Mota is the only medal attained by an Australian at the Olympics. Robert de Castella and Steve...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
When Nike announced recently that its ‘window’ for the attempt to run the first sub-two hour marathon was 5-7 May, an intriguing possibility was raised.
The date dead-centre in the window, 6 May, is the sixty-third anniversary of the breaking of another famous...
A column by Len Johnson – Runner’s Tribe
One of the great features of the build-up to the Zatopek 10,000 used to be seeing the main contenders showing their form with a race, maybe even two races, over 5000 metres.
Let’s commemorate two great distance runners by calling it the Pre-Zatopek...
But with athletics in Victoria, my home state, emerging from Covid lockdown this weekend (14-15 November) with a ‘community’ cross-country, now is as good a time as ever to dive back into Australia’s history at the world cross-country championships.
Now, after the dramatic championships just staged in Bathurst, it is time to re-visit that question. What’s changed for the better? What’s changed for the worse? Has anything changed at all?
A 3:32.17 win for Stewart McSweyn over 1500 in Zagreb on Tuesday night (15 September), was a national record of sorts, the second, 7:28.02 two days later for third over 3000 in Rome, was some sort of national record, taking down no less than the great Craig Mottram by some four seconds.
A column by Len Johnson
For those not closely monitoring Tasmania’s Christmas Carnivals series of cycling and athletics competitions – i.e. most of the world – Stewart McSweyn’s 3:50.61 mile at Penguin on 29 December came as a bolt from the blue.
Not that there’s any surprise about McSweyn running that...
Ayana’s fall: A Column By Len Johnson
We all know there was a fall in the Olympic women’s 5000 metres heat won by Almaz Ayana on 16 August. Nikki Hamblin tripped and fell, Abbey D’Agostino tumbled over her and the reactions of both women in the immediate aftermath have already...
There have been exciting advances on the Australian indoor all-time list in recent weeks. A number of athletes – including Stewart McSweyn, Morgan McDonald, Ollie Hoare and Jessica Hull – have produced performances putting them among the top Australians ever.
McDonald ran 7:42.76 for 3000 metres at New York’s famous...
As we ‘progress’ ever further into this strange time of lockdown, increasingly the past is becoming our new future.
Denied competition to get enthusiastic about we dig ever deeper into nostalgia. And the good thing about nostalgia is that – despite its not being as good as it used to...
