I'm in London for the marathon, and today was the first set of press conferences. The first one had a slightly odd ending. Both Mo Farah and Eliud Kipchoge were on stage and after they finished taking questions, just before they left, Farah made a special point to address the media. He said that his buildup had gone well but that there was one hiccup. Farah did his buildup in Ethiopia and was staying at a hotel owned by Haile Gebrselassie. On his birthday (March 23), he said he was robbed and that he is disappointed in Haile: "Someone at the hotel got into my bag, opened my bag, took my money, took my nice watch my wife bought me [as] a present, just to be honest, Haile owns the hotel," Farah said. "When you stay for three months in that hotel, it’s very disappointing to know someone who has that hotel and that kind of hotel couldn’t do nothing. And at the end, they couldn’t do nothing, so just disappointed in Haile." I don't know how closely Haile is involved in the day-to-day operations, but Farah was clearly upset. Update#2: We have three articles on the situation. The most recent one is here where the alleged victim in the attack said it was 'minor' https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/04/victim-of-mo-farahs-alleged-attack-says-his-altercation-with-farah-was-minor-that-his-wife-was-not-struck/ From Wednesday:https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/04/haile-gebrselassie-fires-back-at-mo-farah-accuses-him-of-disgraceful-conduct-says-sir-mo-attacked-a-married-athlete-in-hotel-gym/ Mo has issued a statement regarding Haile's accusations to The Telegraph.
The Telegraph wrote:
“Mo is disappointed with this statement and the continued reluctance by the hotel and its owner to take responsibility for this robbery. Mo disputes all of these claims which are an effort to distract from the situation, where members of his hotel staff used a room key and stole money and items from Mo Farah’s room (there was no safe as it was faulty, and Mo requested a new one).
Police reports confirm the incident and the hotel admitted responsibility and were in contact with Mo’s legal advisor. The hotel even offered to pay Mo the amount stolen, only to withdraw the offer when he prematurely left the hotel and moved to other accommodation, due to security concerns. Despite many attempts to discuss this issue privately with Mr Gebrselassie, he did not respond but now that he has, we would welcome him or his legal team getting in touch so that this matter can be resolved.”.
A previous LRC article is here:
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/04/mo-farah-really-wants-you-to-know-he-was-burglarized-at-haile-gebrselassies-hotel/