You all can deride Farah in spite of the fact he is more successful than any of you can ever dream at distance running, your preferred sport. But if so, you are wrong.
I thought Mo ran a great race. Like Wohlhuter in the 76 800 - remember his race analysis posted here - he had a plan, he stuck to it, he covered the bases, made no major mistakes, kept a cool head when the others didn't follow their scripts. He just didn't have the legs to cover Edris' finish. Maybe it was the 10k, or his age, or a combo, that took that fraction out of him.
What was best about that race was his handling of the close. With 60m to go, in a high-speed sprint close, Farah was fourth and boxed. It looked like he was not going to medal at that moment. He maintained presence of mind to stay inside, as Kejelcha in front started to feel he couldn't maintain and drifted right to block Chelimo coming hard on his right. Chelimo inched past both of them on the outside, meantime, MoFa kept driving in spite of knowing at that moment, he wasn't going to catch Edris. No gold. He could easily have collapsed or even let go a touch which would have relegated him for sure to a non-medal position. He did nothing of the kind, he totally gutted it out and drove ahead of Kejelcha first and then Chelimo just before the line to grab silver. It's so much easier psychologically to drive hard and dip when you're free of expectations and unheralded, chasing the gold. Much, much harder when you're the king, being deposed, with massive expectations sitting on you - and you know you've lost gold already. That takes balls.
I think that was one of MoFa's gutsiest races.