Why trips matter
Today it’s for his reputation on and off the road as he faces world’s best in London
WHEN Mo Farah lit the match four days ago, he would have been well advised to check first if he was standing in petrol. The uncertainty now is over how much damage might be done by the fires burning in London and Addis Ababa.
That is not to take sides at this point, nor to draw any premature conclusions from one of the most extraordinary rows ever to erupt publicly between elite sportsmen.
But what is indisputable is that Farah will today face the greatest marathon runner of all time in London and he will have to do so in the company of dark clouds that could stick around for a good deal longer than two hours.
How long? That remains to be seen. How dark are they?
That too, because once his business with the great Eliud Kipchoge is dealt with across 26.2miles, then you have to wonder what will come from the astonishing claims of Haile Gebrselassie.
Who could have known on Wednesday morning it would play out like this? That the Ethiopian’s nuclear response to Farah’s allegation of indifference to a theft would be to accuse him of leaving an unpaid hotel bill, ‘disgraceful conduct’, blackmail, assault on a married couple and, finally, startlingly, an association with Jama Aden, a coach at the centre of a police investigation over doping. Gebrselassie didn’t so much bring a gun to a knife fight as a navy, an air force, ground troops and the last living dragons of Daenerys Targaryen.
All of which makes it natural to wonder about the beginning of this mess, to wonder why Farah wrapped up an entirely benign press conference at the Tower Hotel by raising, unprompted, his irritation with Gebrselassie? Why did he follow soft-focus answers about the home crowd, Arsenal and water bottles with the stiff jab that sparked this whole episode?
Farah’s coach Gary Lough has said it was ‘really bothering’ Farah that his unhappiness with the theft had not been taken seriously by Gebrselassie last month, and that is understandable.
But even if we assume Farah didn’t know any or all of what would come back the other way, it is still unusual for such a high-profile athlete to throw up such a titillating talking point ahead of a high-profile event. All indications are that it wasn’t a strategy advised by his management, and that it was more the will of Farah and his wife Tania, but whoever came up with the idea, it feels distinctly like a strange one.
It is necessary at this point to underline that Farah’s camp dispute all Gebrselassie’s claims, which they say are a tactic to distract from the theft, and that the altercation in a gym with a married couple was started by the other side. On the alleged business of Aden, Farah’s spokesperson told Sportsmail last week it was ‘utter nonsense’.
But there is no doubting it is on that latter issue where this saga has turned especially nasty. The rest is one thing – a real attentiongrabber and not a great look for anyone, no doubt. But the disputed suggestion from Gebrselassie that this all started when Farah took exception to Aden not being allowed to stay in his hotel in 2017? That is quite something else. Gebrselassie dates that alleged episode to his time as president of the Ethiopian Athletics Federation between November 2016 and November 2018. Aden, remember, was arrested after a major doping raid in June 2016 and is currently wanted to stand trial in Spain.
So that claim from Gebrselassie is the one that drew attention from folk across athletics. UK Athletics and Farah have always distanced themselves from the Somalian coach, saying he was an ‘unofficial facilitator’ for Farah when he trained in Ethiopia in 2015 and playing down the fact they were photographed together in 2016. Likewise, Farah’s spokesperson reasserted on Thursday that Aden has never trained him and UK Athletics added on Friday that Farah had dismissed Gebrselassie’s claim to them.
Which makes it the word of one celebrated runner against another. But how uncomfortable. How awkward.
And so there is a cloud of scepticism. Just like there has been at other junctures of Farah’s career, owing to his medal-rich time with his former coach Alberto Salazar, who remains under investigation by US Anti-Doping. It might be that one of Britain’s greatest ever Olympians has to live out the majority of his career under that weather. He has previously spoken of his exasperation over that, but for the media to not ask questions on the matter would be gross negligence.
Inevitable in all that is that some will feel his achievements do not get the credit they deserve. Those achievements on paper are incredible, of course. And if he were to pull off a major upset against Kipchoge today, that would be among his very finest.
But that hasn’t been the story ever since Farah chose to bring Gebrselassie into it. The story hasn’t focused on the talent of a Kenyan who is the world record holder, the winner of 10 of his 11 marathons and four minutes quicker than Farah by personal best. It hasn’t been on the progression of Farah, either, from fourtime Olympic champion on the track to the winner of the Chicago marathon in a European record last October. It also hasn’t been on their shared thought that one day a subtwo hour marathon is possible, or that Farah has his ‘MoJo back’, or that he feels he is a stronger character than he was a year ago, when he finished third here, in part because he was too inexperienced to stop Kipchoge from instructing the pacemakers to go brutally quick for 13 miles.
To hear him on that was fascinating: ‘I think I have slightly bit more power than I did last year. I was the underdog, I was learning, it was new. Having won Chicago I definitely have more cards to play.’
It was an interesting sub-plot to an interesting race between two interesting characters. A head-tohead worth watching.
But ever since that match was struck by Farah, it has been hard to look at anything other than the whopping great big fire.