MO FARAH defended his world 10,000m title in Beijing last night to win an unprecedented sixth successive gold medal at major championships. But he had to survive a scare on the final lap, when he tripped passing a back-marker, to achieve his place in the record books.
“I honestly thought I was gone,” Farah said. “But I managed to stay on my feet, go round to the front and make sure I had something left for the end.”
Since Farah won his first world title in Daegu in 2011 he has been unbeaten at 10,000m or 5,000m at world championships and Olympics. Not even the great champions of long-distance running, Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele, can match that run of six back-to-back victories. The 32-year-old is now so dominant that he is a hot favourite to add a seventh title to his name in the 5,000m on Saturday.
The victory, by less than a second over Geoffrey Kamworor of Kenya, came at the end of a torrid summer for Farah, who has been dragged into drug allegations made by the BBC’s Panorama programme against his coach, Alberto Salazar, at the Oregon Project.
Farah was angered and shaken by the accusations, but he has stayed loyal to Salazar, who kept a low profile last night. “It’s a relief definitely,” Farah said of his victory. “Sometimes certain things happen that are out of your control, but I’m controlling what I’m doing and winning races and it’s nice to be able to do that. It’s great to win here for everyone who’s believed in me and supported me. I love running.
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“It means a lot because I genuinely never thought I’d be able to come here year after year and keep doing it. You don’t plan that. You can plan how to do world championships and Olympics and everything else, but through all that you have to stay injury free, stay focused and get your races right, and sometimes it’s not easy.
“I’m 32 now and it’s nice to still be winning races at that age and, hopefully, I still have a couple of years left in terms of the track and then we’ll see what we can do on the roads. It’s getting tougher and I’m not getting any younger.”
It was a good day for another Olympic champion, Jessica Ennis-Hill, who led a British one-two ahead of Katarina Johnson-Thompson after the first day of the heptathlon. Ennis-Hill, who came back to the sport this season after becoming a mother, is 80 points ahead of her young British rival with three of the seven events left today.
“I actually feel I can be better,” said the 2012 Olympic champion. “But I’m surprised to be in the lead. It’s going to be a big day today.”
Both girls thought their duel would come down to the 800m, the last and most gruelling of the seven events, which was not an appealing prospect for either of them.
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“I’d like to think it’s a British play-off now,” said Johnson-Thompson. “I’ve said all along that it would come down to the 800m and I don’t want to battle it out with Jess over 800m because neither of us would give up. It could be very special.”
If Ennis-Hill holds on for victory, it would be her second world title, but her first as a mother.