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.

On 15 May 1983, Petranoff launched his Pacer III javelin from one end of Drake Stadium just down the road from Beverly Hills in Los Angeles and it landed 99.72 metres away perilously close to the other end of the oval. It was enough to make governing bodies ponder the event’s future.
Sometime soon – very soon, most probably – Tamsyn Manou will no longer boast a performance in the top-10 all-time at 800 metres.
Australia’s first medallist at the world championships in Budapest this year will also be our 40th world championships medallist.
A (slightly) revisionist view of the London marathon. Kelvin Kiptum ran home in splendid isolation to win the London marathon, covering the second half of the race in 59:45 to miss Eliud Kipchoge’s world record by just 16 seconds. Unleash your full potential with Tarkine Goshawk shoes, where cutting-edge...
Is 10 seconds for the men’s 100 metres going the way of four minutes for the mile as measure of elite performance.
For the first time in quite a few years I wasn’t at the nationals. Not by choice: the situation was imposed on me, first by a scheduled trekking trip to Nepal, then by the flaring up of a back condition which forced the cancellation of the former and precluded...
If, like me, you think innovation in athletics started with Nitro and those introductions were athletes trot onto the track past a couple of exploding gas canisters, then you’ve probably never heard of the International Track Association. Fifty years ago this month (I can write that because it’s 31 March...
Good grief. Are the national championships really coming up in Brisbane in a week’s time. I guess they must be. I’ve been getting emails advertising the fact all this past week.
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.
For the sake of British athletes, let’s hope that the tough talk remains just that. Talk tough and select them all.
                   

Brilliantly

SAFE!

2022