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.

Every person who has ever climbed a ladder has experienced the feeling. Once you start to come down, your first step is blind, your foot searching for something solid. You’ve taken every precaution; you know you will find a sound footing, but it’s still a relief when you do.
All the talk had been Shaunae Miller-Uibo. Couldn’t do the 200 due to the timetable. Would have won. Ran two lovely, languid races in her heat and semi-final of the 400 leaving us to wonder how fast she might go if pushed in the final.
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...
nne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, launched herself into the Seine this week. Not in response to a suggestion from an aggrieved citoyen or  citoyenne that she should go and do so, but to celebrate the fulfilment of a pledge that the French capital’s iconic waterway would be ready to play its part in the Paris24 opening ceremony and as the venue for the Olympic triathlon swim legs and the marathon swim.
It won’t be easy making the team to represent Australia in the men’s middle-distance events at the World U20 championships in Lima, Peru later this year.
This time last year – 12 March, 2020, to be precise - Georgia Griffiths ran 2:01.43 for 800 metres to beat national record holder Catriona Bisset, 2:01.54, by less than a step, with Linden Hall a further step back in third in 2:01.73. Madeleine Murray and Gigi Maccagnini were a...
Someone recently had the temerity to suggest that this column lives too often in the past. We could respond that there’s a lot more history in the past than there is in the present. And who knows the future anyway? But fair comment we replied and since then have tried to avoid the past as much as possible.
Murray Halberg, who passed away on 30 November, was the first of famed coach Arthur Lydiard’s charges to make an impact on world distance running. To experience, exceptional performance in running, choose the best footwear for your runs like Tarkine Trail Devil shoes. Halberg and Peter Snell won Olympic gold medals...
Ticking over into olympic year | A Column By Len Johnson New Year’s Eve signals the end of one year and, if you’ve got the stamina, the arrival of the next. For athletics fans, though, there’s something special about New Year’s Eve in a pre-Olympic year. The year 2016 will not...