Mo Farah is feeling red, white, black and blue. Four defeats and a row about plastic Brits have left him bruised and musing on matters such as vulnerability and nationhood. The 5,000 metres world champion is not about to gloss over the losses.
After two lustrous years in which a cluster of British and European records tumbled in tandem with him winning four gold medals, the defeats hurt him deeply. “I never like losing,” he says. “Who likes to lose against their opposition? Steve Cram said you don’t want to give your rivals a taste of winning, a taste of beating you, and I totally agree. You want to make them think you’re unbeatable.”
The caveat to this self-flagellation is that the beatings took place indoors over distances that will not be on the Olympic agenda. Farah is based in Oregon, in the United States, and the first defeat came when he was tripped in Boston, yet he recovered to record a time of 3min 57.92sec for the mile. More worrying was his second place in Birmingham last month, when he admitted to feeling tired and leggy after a disappointing two-mile sojourn.
At the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, he actually ran faster than when winning the European 3,000 metres title in 2011. However, his mantle had slipped and, including his heat in Turkey, Farah has now been burnt four times.
There were no excuses for his fourth place in Istanbul. “I got through the heats and felt capable,” he said. “I did not feel heavy-legged or anything. I spoke to my coach [Alberto Salazar] and he told me not to worry. He said I’m more advanced than I was this time last year. But that was the Europeans and this is the worlds. This shows how hard it is to get what you want.”
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Premature coronations have proved ill fated of late. Seven months ago, Jessica Ennis seemed nigh-on unbeatable in the multi-events. Fast-forward and she has surrendered two world titles, indoor and out, and admits that she is no longer favourite for Olympic gold.
“You can’t take it for granted,” Farah says. “Jess would have needed to break the world record. That’s huge. And in my race, all those guys can run. I’m disappointed to not even get a medal, but that’s what makes you a champion. It tells you to wake up. Those guys are still going to keep improving, too.”
Farah may have developed an ill-timed habit of being beaten, but he is not daft enough to beat himself up over it. He also rejects the suggestion that he is overtraining. He regularly runs more than 100 miles a week, whereas Bernard Lagat, the winner in Istanbul, does a maximum of 75. The piercing of the armour meant Salazar having his methods questioned, last year’s genius morphing into this year’s tinkerman.
Is Farah aware of the negativity that could come his way if things continue their downward path? “Look, if you take everything when you’re winning and all that gets given then, you have to be man enough to take it when it goes the other way. What goes up must come down.” And, he hopes, vice versa.
It is rare to see Farah animated, but he was in Istanbul. After his defeat he initially bypassed the media scrum, albeit that relations had become strained after a reporter asked Tiffany Porter to recite the National Anthem at the pre-event press conference.
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Porter has lived in the US all her life, but has a British passport via her mother and switched allegiance last year. Team captain in Turkey, the flag-changing has led to her being branded a plastic Brit.
“When I run for my country I’m as proud as anyone,” Farah says. That was actually a non sequitur as nobody has suggested that Farah is “plastic”. He was born in Somalia, raised in Djibouti and moved to London aged eight, It is athletes representing more than one country and moving for career reasons, rather than personal, that has grated with some. “I didn’t agree with the comment and the way it was worded,” Farah says of that press conference in Istanbul. “Come on, we’re here to compete for our country and do as well as we can. We don’t need that negativity.”
Farah’s flight schedule has been just as complicated, with trips to Kenya, the US, the UK and Turkey crammed into the past two months. The Bupa London 10,000 in May and the Diamond League meeting in Eugene, Oregon, in June are penned in and he plans to cut loose. “I’m confident,” he says. “The target was never the worlds indoors. It was always the Olympics.”
• Mo Farah was talking as part of the Bupa and UK Sport partnershp, which has covered more than 29,000 treatments for Britain’s elite athletes. Visit www.bupa.com/uksport