Sir Mo Farah Admits Tokyo 2020 Postponement Could Boost The Chance Of Olympic Success

Mo Farah celebrates winning the gold medal in the men’s 5000-meter final during the 2016 Summer Olympics

Sir Mo Farah: ‘My name was dragged through the mud and I was tired of it’

If Mo Farah had stayed in his native Somalia, even athletics fans would never have heard of him. Unlike neighboring African countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya, Somalia is not a running nation, and it is unlikely his talent would have been spotted. When his family did leave home – minus twin brother Hassan, whom he would not see for 12 years – he ended up in Britain, not the Netherlands where the grandma he was hoping to live with was then staying.

His start to life in a strange country was none the easier for it. Equipped with just three English phrases – “excuse me”, “where is the toilet?” and unhelpfully, “c’mon then” – the young boy began his first day at a junior school in a rough west London suburb by trying out the last of those terms with the toughest kid in the playground. Mo went home that day with a black eye and the respect of his classmates for holding his own.

Despite his laid-back, laddish approach and fanaticism for football, his athletic prowess was spotted, nurtured, and his unrevealed potential. The highlight of a glittering career was the London 2012 Olympics, where he landed the most famous of several double golds, over 10,000 and 5,000 meters. It put him among the all-time British greats. When he followed this up with more “double-doubles”, including at World Championships 2019, it led commentator Brendan Foster to call him not just Britain’s greatest ever runner, but our greatest ever sportsman.

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He is now 33, famous, wealthy, and a proud father. But he wants more gold medals before he settles down to another new life working – his dream job – for Arsenal.

The Olympic Games were moved from July 23 to August 8 next year, after coronavirus cases rose across the world. Farah, a multiple world and Olympic champion, admitted the postponement could boost his prospects as he transitions back to track running.

“It is probably, in my honest opinion, not a bad thing for me,” he said. “Because it gives you a bit more time to train for it, to do more races because I would have gone from the marathon and then the following year straight to the track. As an athlete, you can never take it for granted – you’ve got to look after yourself, stay injury-free, stay focused.”

“Obviously, I’m not a spring chicken anymore. You take what you can from it” he said.

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