By Len Johnson
They’re not necessarily the sort of figures you’d like associated with your name, but Stewart McSweyn now boasts a pair of impressive performances at 3000 metres.
Seven minutes 30 seconds for 3000 metres represents 60 seconds per lap. Not many men have ever broken 7:30 for the distance. Even...
A column by Len Johnson - 23/07/21
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games haven’t even started and Australia is dominating.
Some hours before the Opening Ceremony, as this is written, Australia is already up and about. In women’s football, goals to Tameka Yallop and the talismanic Sam Kerr took the Matildas to...
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson-Herah share many similarities. Both Jamaican. Both quick-silver fast. Both double-double Olympics champions.
And both women may be wind-legal faster than the current world record holder in the 100 metres, though it appears the chance of either of them being thus acknowledged are about zero.
How so,...
Zurich’s fabled Weltklasse meeting has often been dubbed “the Olympics in one day.”
It’s a fair call. Usually staged within a week of the conclusion of the year’s major championships – Olympic, world or European – Zurich re-packages the just concluded championship as three hours’ non-stop action. The champions can...
Marjorie Jackson, who celebrated her 90th birthday on 13 September, was Australia’s first athletics superstar.
Our first women’s Olympic gold medallist, our first women’s world record holder, Jackson surged to international recognition with a double in the 100 and 200 metres at the Helsinki 1952 Olympic Games. She would have...
A column by Len Johnson
This columnist has always been a big fan of the Rampaging Roy Slaven and H.G. Nelson observation that “too much sport is barely enough”.
But, I wonder, what about when five of the world’s biggest marathons – Berlin, London, Chicago, Boston and New York – are...
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...
Angela Tanui and I share one thing in common: we both set out to run the Boston Marathon but neither of us got there. On the whole, though, I’d rather share her 2:17:57 marathon personal best.
Seeing Angela’s got the better PB, let’s begin with her story. A couple of...
A column by Len Johnson
Back in the day, Ireland’s Eamonn Coghlan was known as Chairman of the Boards, a nickname which acknowledged his mastery of indoor track racing.
Good enough outdoors to have won the gold medal over 5000 metres at the first world championships in Helsinki in 1983 and...
