THEY tried to speed it up to beat him a week ago, last night they tried to slow him down, but the result was still the same, the smile just as broad.
For the seventh time in succession at a major championships, Mo Farah toyed with his opposition to win the gold medal, his second and Britain’s fourth, and while the superlatives are starting to run out along with the excuses of the beaten, Farah now ranks alongside — and perhaps even above — the greatest names in the sport. There is even talk of Farah being knighted, a thought that tickled the man himself. “Sir Mo? That would be amazing,” he said.
Two statistics stand out: one is that Farah, with five golds and a silver, is now the most successful distance runner in the history of the world championships, one click above the five golds and a bronze for Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele; the other is that, last night, Farah’s last 600m was faster than that of David Rudisha in winning the 800m. He ran the last 1km in 2min 19sec, which is a pace that no one could live with last night and only Bekele might have been able to match in his heyday.
Farah deflects such praise, in case it pierces the happy bubble in which he seems to spend much of his life. “I’ll leave that [judgment] to the public, the people, the fans,” he said after completing the 5,000m and 10,000m double for the third major championships in a row. “I’m Mo and I love what I do. This is my job and I just happen to have done a better job than anyone else. I’m just looking forward to getting home, spending time with my family and eating some chocolate.
“My hammy [hamstring] was playing up a bit, but the medical team helped me through it and to come out here and make a double means so much to me.”
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While Alberto Salazar, his coach in the Oregon Project, kept a low profile again last night, Barry Fudge, the head of the endurance programme at UK Athletics, who has put the finishing touches to the 32-year-old’s preparation, has no doubt that Farah is untouchable in his present form.
“Over the week, he’s dealt with a fast race and a slow race with a fast finish,” said Fudge. “Mo has everything. One of the things about him is that he is so relaxed and what relaxes him is knowing we’re going in the right direction. We want our athletes to feel they’re the best in the world. That’s what we’ve spent much of the last eight weeks working on.”
Humble as he is by nature, Farah must feel invincible right now. The Kenyans and Ethiopians believe him to be so too, which is half the battle. But in the red-haired Caleb Ndiku Farah might just have a challenger for the long term. Ndiku, the Commonwealth champion in Farah’s absence, was the only one to take the race to the Briton over the closing stages, matching the champion stride for stride as he attempted his usual charge just before the bell and having the bravery and temerity to take the lead into the back straight.
Wisely, Farah decided to let him go, waiting to track him down off the home bend, which he did with ease, but Ndiku is young and fearless and Fudge has already marked him out as one to watch for Rio in a year’s time.
“He will step up, for sure,” said Farah. “He’s pretty confident, but it’s one thing being confident and another thing to back it up. Next year it’s the Olympics and that’s what every athlete trains for and I’m going to be a year older, so I have to be smarter about my training and how I race, work out everything beforehand.”
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Ndiku believes that, with a full winter’s training behind him, his power and speed will return and he will be able to match Farah over the closing lap. He is tall and rangy and clearly has a turn of foot. “I could see Farah looking at me on the screen,” said the young Kenyan. “If I can keep my body 100%when it comes to Rio, I am in with a chance.”
The key, the one quality that marks Farah out from his training partner, Galen Rupp, and his rivals is his ability to kick in a lap time straight from the 1500m — or 800m — at the end of a 10,000m or 5,000m. That ability does not make Farah a world record holder in the manner of Bekele, but it makes him a supreme championship runner and neither the Kenyans nor the Ethiopians have yet found a way to undermine Farah’s dominance at the business end of the race. When Farah won the 10,000m a week ago, he commented on the overall speed of the race. Yet Bekele had run nearly 15 seconds quicker in Berlin six years before. Last night, his winning time of 13min 50.38sec was slow. “Mo just loves winning races for his country and winning medals,” explained Barry Fudge. “World records don’t interest him right now.”
Not for the first time before this 5,000m, the Kenyans had talked of having a plan to defeat the champion, but if there was a masterplan, Farah had the blueprint.
Farah loped along at the back for the first half of the race while his compatriot, Tom Farrell, led the field at a very steady pace. Only with seven laps to go did Farah stir himself rounding the field to dispute the lead. Insiders said that Ndiku had a finishing kick to match that of Farah’s, but Farah has 10 years more experience and far greater tactical awareness.
The hunted became the hunter for once and as soon as Farah had taken the measure of his young rival, the record books flicked open once more.