FARAH: YOU JUST CAN’T BULLY ME
Bloodied Farah comes out fighting to blast rivals who tried to bully him out of 10k gold
COVERED in the bruises and stitches of a hard night, Mo Farah yesterday threw a couple of jabs back at the contingent of East African runners who tried to bully him out of his 10th global title.
That they failed in such an extraordinary 10,000m race on Friday brought the broadest of smiles to Britain’s greatest ever runner, not just because he won but also because he proved a point he felt needed to be made.
‘People take my kindness for weakness,’ he said back at the British base. ‘If I was weak do you think I would have won? Don’t judge the book by its cover. A lot of times people say, “You are nice”, and try to take advantage but you have to be ruthless on the track.’
Whatever other questions have been asked of Farah since the US Anti-Doping Agency started investigating his coach, Alberto Salazar — and it would be wildly negligent not to ask them — it would be absurd to doubt Farah’s competitive resilience. Especially after what he withstood here, where a good chunk of the field conspired to blend their nationalities for the common goal of beating him.
They stacked the numbers against him and roughed up 34-year-old Farah, who twice almost stumbled to the ground on the last of the 25 laps. But he had the last laugh and it was loud.
Of Geoffrey Kamworor, the sixthplaced Kenyan who took silver in the last world championships, Farah said: ‘In the papers he was like, “It’s my turn, I’m going to beat him”. He didn’t even get a medal.’
On the general team effort to beat him, he added: ‘Have I had a race that hard and that banged up? No. The race was difficult, it was hard, the guys gave it to me — each one of them. It felt like me against the whole world — and it was — but at the same time they were working as a team.
‘The Ugandan guys were looking for the Kenyan guys, the Kenyan guys were looking for the Ugandan guys, a couple of Ethiopians. They worked that well, fair play to them.
‘For many years they’ve been saying how they’re going to beat me.’
There was a distinct air of satisfaction around Farah that they failed, an extra pride that the combined force of the pack couldn’t stop him. But the issue is whether the effort of winning that sixth world title will compromise his attempt to win the 5,000m next Saturday.
For a fleeting moment, there was some doubt over his fitness, given he needed treatment for spike cuts on his left leg and bruising to a knee, both after his race on Friday and then yesterday morning. He needed three stitches for the cuts but dismissed any possibility of a lingering issue.
He said: ‘I went through the whole system — doctors, scan and got a few stitches. But it’s all good. It’s nothing that concerned me and I’ve got enough days to recover, rest up, to be ready.
‘I’ve had three stitches, just the three little ones. I’m not worried about that. I’m more worried about the knee, it’s just slightly banged up.’
His next effort is a seventh world title in the 5,000m to go with his four Olympic golds. Incredibly none came before he was 28, which illustrates the transformation of his career since joining up with Salazar in 2011.
Only a handful of track races now remain — possibly as few as four —before he focuses on the road from next year onwards.
‘I am not as fresh as I was six years ago, five years ago,’ he said. ‘If you look in my diary from then, it’s a big difference.
‘There are days when you come to the track and you are knackered, nothing in the body. But if you want it, you have to do the work. I was doing some of my key sessions with 10 or 12 days to go and the guys saw what I was doing. “Guys, that is what I have been doing for five or six years. Not exactly that session but similar. If you want it that is what you have to do”. ‘Hard races have to be run.’ None harder than the one that brought his most recent medal.