As Brit athletics legend Sir Mo Farah prepares for his last race, we look back on £4million star’s medals and controversial coach Alberto Salazar
SIR MO FARAH has made us weep for joy many times over the years – but tonight there will be tears of sadness.
It is time to say goodbye as one of our true all-time sporting greats takes to the track for the last time.
The 5,000m final at the World Championships takes place at the same stadium where he won not just double gold at the 2012 London Olympics, but also the hearts of the nation.
Although he won the 10,000m last Friday, Mo knows that victory tonight will be tough.
Last Saturday his fellow 2012 legend Usain Bolt found himself coming a disappointing third at his own last solo race of his career in the 100m.
Mo, 34, who is switching his focus to marathons, said of his chances tonight: “It ain’t easy. It ain’t easy. We’ve seen it with Usain Bolt. It happens.
"No one is going to give it to you and these boys are coming for me.”
But of the possibility of winning his eleventh global title in a row, he said: “It would be incredible, something I’ve dreamed of.”
We’ll be dreaming with him when the race starts at 8.20pm.
Here we look back on the extraordinary career of the athlete with the most expressive face in the business.
Victories
MO claimed his first World Championship gold in 2011 in South Korea in the 5,000m, and got silver in the 10,000m.
The following year he became a national hero by bagging two gold medals at the London Olympics.
The first came in the 10,000m on “Super Saturday”, described by Olympics boss Lord Coe as “the greatest day of sport I have ever witnessed”.
The nation was delirious with a joy best expressed, as always, by Mo’s face.
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By the time he again won gold the next week, in the 5,000m, the roar of the crowd was so loud it made TV cameras shake.
He won the same double gold at last year’s Rio Olympics.
In the World Championships he has won gold three times in both the 5,000m and the 10,000m.
Family
MO was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, after London IT expert Muktar fell for local woman Amran while he was on holiday.
They married and went on to have six children, including identical twins Mo and Hassan, born in 1983.
Their dad moved back to London, and when the twins were eight he announced he could bring three of the kids over to live with him.
Mo and his two older brothers were chosen and it was 12 years before he saw his twin again.
Mo tied the knot to childhood sweetheart Tania, now 31, in 2010. Kids Rhianna, 12, twin girls Aisha and Amani, four, and one-year-old son Hussein joined Mo on the track after his victory in the 10,000m last Friday.
Rise To Fame
MO was a lanky teenager when his potential talent for running was spotted by his PE teacher at Feltham Community College in West London.
Alan Watkinson recalled: “For a PE teacher a pupil like Mo comes along once in a lifetime – he was just incredible.
“Needless to say he holds all the school records. He has great natural talent, and he’s worked so hard.”
In 2001, he began training under coach Alan Storey and seven years later, he got the fastest UK men’s 10,000m time for nearly a decade.
In 2011 he moved to the US to work with coach Alberto Salazar, who said he was the “weakest athlete” he had ever trained.
Along with many medals since then, Mo has won a CBE in 2013, and a knighthood this year.
Mo Farah by numbers
- 8: Age when he moved to UK from Somalia
- 10: Number of global final wins in a row
- 75 miles: Distance run in global finals
- £4 million estimated worth
- 27:30.42: Winning time in 10,000m final at London 2012
Controversy
SOME critics grumble about Mo, who was made a knight of the realm earlier this year, choosing to live in the US for the past six years.
He relocated with his family to Portland, Oregon, in order to be coached full-time by US endurance-running guru Alberto Salazar.
Salazar, above centre with Mo and US runner Galen Rupp at the London Olympics, has turned out to be the most controversial figure in the Brit’s whole career.
In June 2015, Salazar was named in a US investigation into doping allegations there.
Mo is angry his name has been “dragged through the mud” by association but he has stuck by the coach, who denies the allegations.
The rumbles continued before the current World Championships when some reporters complained they weren’t allowed to interview the star in case they asked about Salazar.
Brand
SUPERSTAR quality and a rags-to-riches story have helped Mo to land huge sponsorship deals.
Companies to have signed him up include Lucozade, Virgin Media, Bupa and Nike – which this week released a short film to mark the end of his track career.
Called Smile, it shows the star’s gruelling training regime, including running on the spot under water with weights on his ankles.
And despite Mo admitting that grilled chicken is his power-food when training – and celebrating his double Olympic win in 2012 with a burger – he was the face of Quorn for three years.
Meanwhile, the athlete’s autobiography Twin Ambitions was an instant bestseller when it was released in 2014.
All in all, it is unlikely he will have to count his pennies when he retires from the track.
Lows
THERE have been many ups – but a few downs too.
In 2014, Mo collapsed at the finish line after coming second in the New York Half Marathon and had to be given oxygen.
And back at his first Olympics, in Beijing in 2008, he failed to make the 5,000m final. He calls it the biggest disappointment of his career.
Even last week, in his 10,000m win, he had some trouble, being nearly barged off the track during the race.
He also got spiked by a competitor’s shoe at some point and needed three stitches in his left leg.
Mo said afterwards: “I’ve never had a race that hard and banged up. Those guys gave it to me, each one of them. It felt like me against the whole world – and it was.
“But it’s all good. It’s nothing that concerns me and I’ve got enough days to recover, rest up, to be ready for the 5,000m.”
Mobot
CLARE BALDING invented the star’s trademark move for him, in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.
The BBC presenter was appearing on Sky1’s sports game show A League Of Their Own ahead of the London Olympics.
Host James Corden had asked the panellists to come up with ideas for a victory celebration move for fellow guest Mo.
Clare said: “I think he should do the M from YMCA, the M for Mo,” and performed the move to illustrate her point.
Host James then dubbed it the “Mobot”.
Mo said: “I’ll give it a go.”
He has performed it at every win since, including at the London Olympics, where fellow superstar Usain Bolt also tried it out.
The Mobot also inspired a dance to raise money for the Mo Farah Foundation which the athlete set up to help children in East Africa.
Prankster who grew into a hero
By Vikki Orvice, Sun Sports writer
WHEN Mo Farah walks off the track tonight it will be the end of an era.
Not only for Mo himself but for British athletics and also for me.
I’ve watched him go from a talented kid whose career high once looked like it would be a European 5,000m silver in 2006 to Britain’s greatest ever sportsman, certainly the best on the track.
This was the young athlete who once went out with a mate, stripped off and decided to jump off Kingston Bridge into the Thames.
But then he got his act together.
If he wanted to be one of the world’s best he had to start training brutally like them, even going out to live with his Kenyan rivals.
Ruthless on the track, he is quiet off it, hates conflict and loves football. Especially Arsenal.
He is sensitive to criticism, and the doping controversy surrounding his coach Alberto Salazar – who he actually spends little time with these days – hit him hard.
As has never making the top three of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
Of course we’ll still see Mo in action as he moves up to the marathon event later this year.
But it won’t be the same.