Mo Farah Caps Magical Year With Win In Gateshead
By David Monti
(c) 2011 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
GATESHEAD, ENGLAND (17-Sep) -- Spreading his arms wide as he broke the
tape here today at the two-mile event at the Great North City Games, Mo
Farah heaved a sigh of relief. Nine long months of hard training and
competition were finally over.
"It was all right," Farah said immediately after his comfortable eight minute and 37.72-second victory. "Break now."
But during those nine months, Farah compiled the kind of record which
even great athletes are unable to do over an entire career. In 16 races
on all four surfaces --cross country, indoor track, track and road--
Farah finished first in all but three of them, establishing himself as
the world's #1 distance runner below the marathon distance. His
accomplishments this year include both medals (gold, European Indoor
3000m and World Championships 5000m, and silver, World Championships
10,000m), and fast times (European record at 10,000m, 26:46.57; British
Records at 5000m indoors, 13:10.60, and outdoors, 12:53.11). He has now
become a bona fide celebrity here.
"I've just had a lot of people coming up to me, saying 'well done,'"
Farah told Race Results Weekly in an interview yesterday. "It's just
amazing support."
Farah's stature has risen so high that he was even honored recently
before an Arsenal football match at Emirates Stadium. Farah has been a
big Arsenal supporter since his childhood in London.
"What was so special, was going to Emirates (Stadium) and getting
introduced to the crowd right before the game and just getting a massive
cheer from the Arsenal fans," Farah said with just a touch of
disbelief. "I'm a huge Arsenal fan."
Farah's versatility makes him a very unusual athlete. He's hard to beat
on any surface, and under coach Alberto Salazar, he's put himself in a
wide range of events this year, all with great success. He won the Bupa
Great Edinburgh Cross Country last January on a snow-covered course,
then raced four consecutive indoor races, winning all but one. Fifteen
days after winning the European Indoor 3000m title in Paris last March,
he surprised observers by jumping into the NYC Half-Marathon with
training partner Galen Rupp. He won in 1:00:23, the fastest time ever
by a Briton, although ineligible for a record because of the
point-to-point and slightly downhill course.
"You know, as an athlete it's very exciting when you're changing
events," Farah explained. "New York Half-Marathon was really awesome
for me; I really enjoyed that. The reason why, I've never competed in
one before, and I ended up winning and running a decent time. And then
coming back indoors, I quite like indoors. You've got to do your speed.
Then, cross country in the winter, it's a bit cold and snowy, but you
have to do the work. You know, it's exciting. I really like competing
in different events."
Farah said that he will return to Portland, Ore., where he currently
makes his home and trains with USA 10,000m record holder Galen Rupp, and
take a long break before resuming his training. He has not allowed his
mind to stray too far into next year when he will be one of the big
stars of the London 2012 Olympics. Farah said that it's
counterproductive to look too far ahead.
"I haven't thought that far ahead to be honest with you," he said when
asked to imagine himself in an Olympic final next summer. "We're just
taking it one race at a time. As an athlete, what you mainly have to do
is just keep your feet on the ground and stay injury-free, and just
focus on one year at a time. I think this year is done now. Then,
we'll have a chat with my coach back in the U.S. and we'll discuss and
plan towards 2012."
Instead of running here in Gateshead, Farah could have run in the
Samsung Diamond League 5000m final in Brussels last night. He was the
event's points-leader, and had he won the race he would have collected
USD 50,000 in prize money, including the USD 40,000 given to the Diamond
Race winner. But he and coach Salazar felt that taking a victory lap
here was the better choice after such a hard season.
"I'm leading the Diamond points, so if I would have won it would have
been good," Farah said yesterday. "But, sometimes you can get carried
away too much. As an athlete, you always want to win and be everywhere,
but sometimes you have to learn to just say "no," and just do one race,
call it a day. I am tired. I definitely would have gone into that
race tired. I wanted to be 100 percent. So, I came here and just
competed two miles, the shorter distance, which is going to be good."
Farah said yesterday that he would not return to Britain for the
year-end holidays because he needed to remain focused on his training.
Nonetheless, he's enjoyed his time back in England with his wife Tania
and her daughter, Rhianna, however brief.
"It feels good to be back home in London where I grew up," he said.
"It's great to be with your family and friends, very exciting."
# # # # #
The United States beat Great Britain 7-3 in the ten-event team
competition of the Great North City Games. Each team scored one point
for an event victory. The event winners were (in the order they were
contested): W PV, Becky Holliday, USA, 4.27m; M Mile, Bernard Lagat,
USA, 4:06.01; W 100mH, Dawn Harper, USA, 12.73; W Mile, Hannah England,
GBR, 4:39.49; M LJ, Jeremy Hicks, USA, 7.84m; M 2 Mile, Mo Farah, GBR,
8:37.72; M 100m, Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, GBR, 10.27; W 150m, Carmelita
Jeter, USA, 16.50; M 150m, Walter Dix, USA, 14.65; M 110mH, Jason
Richrdson, USA, 13.26.
PHOTO: Mo Farah celebrates after winning the two-mile event at the 2011
Great North City Games in Gateshead, England (photo by Joe Battaglia,
UniversalSports.com; used with permission)
NOTE: This is Mo Farah's complete racing record for 2011 from the Race Results Weekly Athlete Performance Database:
(1) Bupa Great Edinburgh Cross Country 8 km 08-Jan 25:41
(2) New Balance Indoor Grand Prix 3000m 05-Feb 7:35.81
(1) Aviva Grand Prix 5000m 19-Feb 13:10.60 NR
(1) European Indoor Championships Prelim 3000m 04-Mar 8:02.36
(1) European Indoor Championships Final 3000m 05-Mar 7:53.00 (Gold Medal)
(1) NYC Half-Marathon 21.1 km 20-Mar 1:00:23 DB
(1) Bupa Run London 10-K (NC) 10 km 30-May 29:15
(1) Prefontain Classic 10,000m 03-Jun 26:46.57 NR/ER (#2 2011)
(1) Aviva Birmimgham Grand Prix 5000m 10-Jul 13:06.14
(1) Herculis Meeting 5000m 22-Jul 12:53.11 NR/MR (#1 2011)
(1) Aviva UK Trials & Championships 5000m 31-Jul 14:00.72
(1) Aviva London Grand Prix 3000m 05-Aug 7:40.15
(2) IAAF World Championships Final 10,000m 28-Aug 27:14.07 (Silver Medal)
(2) IAAF World Championships Prelim 5000m 01-Sep 13:38.03
(1) IAAF World Championships Final 5000m 04-Sep 13:23.36 (Gold Medal)
(1) Great North City Games 2 mi. 17-Sep 8:38
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