Even now, after so many repeat viewings, Mo Farah winning never gets boring. His latest victory, in the men’s 5,000m world championships in Beijing, was his seventh consecutive world and Olympic title. Yet he celebrated it like his first: with a sonic boom as he crossed the line before falling humbly to his knees in prayer.
Incredibly after this historic “triple-double” of 5,000m and 10,000m golds at London 2012, Moscow 2013 and Beijing 2015, Farah has more global outdoor titles than the great Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie. He also stands only one behind Kenenisa Bekele, who has eight. Farah cannot live with their best times on all-time lists but after Rio 2016 he could well have more combined world and Olympic titles.
Too often Farah’s rivals have let a championship middle-distance race turn into a prolonged sprint. This time there was a twist. After a painfully slow mile, during which Farah was content to sit at the back as his team-mate Tom Farrell led the shuffling pack, the contest gently smouldered before erupting with two laps to go.
It has become second nature for Farah to wait until 600m before striking for home. This time Caleb Ndiku, who won the 5,000m Commonwealth Games title last year, decided to set him a new test by going for broke with 800m remaining.
The 22-year-old, who has run 3:29.50 for 1500m, drove hard in a brave attempt to break Farah and at one point established a lead of two or three metres but behind him there was no panic.
Farah recalibrated and closed the distance until with 100m to go he was on the Kenyan’s shoulder. He appeared to pause briefly, before a sudden spike in adrenaline and power sent him to victory in 13:50.38.
“I still felt in control of the race when he went,” said Farah, who said he had been receiving treatment for a minor hamstring injury during the week. “I was looking at him thinking: ‘This guy is trying too hard here.’ Coming into the straight I knew I had him.”
Ndiku, who missed large chunks of winter training, clung on to silver in 13:51.75. The Ethiopian Hagos Gebrhiwet was third in 13.51.86.
“It’s definitely been hard,” Farah said. “If you’d have said to me seven years ago, you’d have one medal I would have said OK, but to win as many medals as I have is just incredible. And it was great to make history, particularly at this moment when my wife and kids couldn’t be here.
“I was speaking to my daughter, who thinks I’ve got another home somewhere else. She says: ‘Daddy, I’m coming to your home’ and I’m like: ‘I don’t have another home.’ You have to explain that to the kids and that makes it more enjoyable than anything else.”
Farah has spent nearly three months away from home, in Oregon, away from his family and his coach Alberto Salazar. It has been a stormy summer in other ways too, especially in early June after the BBC accused Salazar of violating anti-doping regulations, which the coach staunchly denies. It was during that turbulent time, when every day seemed to bring a fresh accusation against his coach, that Farah decided it would be fuel to fire him for Beijing.
He headed earlier than planned to Font-Romeu in the south of France where he trained under Barry Fudge, the British Athletics endurance coach, with the workouts provided by Salazar. As Fudge explained: “Mo said to me, we’ve got to do something special this summer. To hell with all this other stuff. How do I win two more titles? And I told him, look we have an opportunity for you to be exceptional. And he was.”
Such was Farah’s speed he covered the last two laps in 1:48.6 – only three seconds slower than David Rudisha’s winning time in the 800m final. During the week Salazar had said Farah was in the shape of his life. On Saturday in the Bird’s Nest, he proved it.
When asked if he would be staying with Salazar, as reported by the Guardian last week, Farah ducked the question. “I’m not even thinking about anything other than going home, eating some chocolate and looking forward to spending time with my kids,” he said.
You can be sure Farah will be back training in Oregon and determined as ever to retain his double Olympic titles. “Next year is going to be hard,” he said. “I’m going to be a little bit older but I just need to keep doing what I’m doing and be smart about my training, what I do, and how I race.”
Fudge does not expect Farah to ease off even though he will be 33 in March. “He’s at the top of his game right now,” he said. “He is definitely the best he has ever been in terms of shape. He’s very confident and relaxed, and he’s produced the best training sessions he’s ever produced. We will regroup and the goal next year will be to double up again in Rio but there are two or three out there who will give him a hard time.”
That list certainly includes Ndiku, who missed several months of winter training because of injury and could not train for a fortnight after hurting himself in Lausanne in July.
Even so, his performance served notice he has the ability and ambition to cause Farah a few sleepless nights. Ndiku said: “It was a funny race. Nobody wanted to push and Farah knew he could kill everyone at the end. But I am not 100% fit.
“I wanted to race him last year, when he was injured but he refused to meet me twice. Then when I was injured this year he wanted to face me. If I stay fit we will race together in Rio. Only then if he beats me will I admit he is the greater man over 5,000m.”
When told of Ndiku’s comments Farah seemed to relish the challenge. “It’s one thing to be confident but then you have to back it up,” he said. On the walls of his house, Farah has hung up every one of his senior medals. There are 23 of them now, including two Olympic golds and five world titles. It is getting so crowded that afterwards he joked that he might need a bigger house. Out on the track, however, Farah is still out on his own.
