This week Mo Farah called time on his track career, but he leaves the stadium circuit as one of the all-time greats. With four Olympic gold medals to his name, he has woven his name into the fabric of our country and goes down as Great Britain’s greatest ever track athlete.
But he’s done more than that for British athletics. Against all the odds, he made long-distance running the must-watch event at an Olympic Games. In 2012, we all stopped what we were doing to watch this lovable Londoner run around a track for almost half an hour. And we loved every single second of it.
The sprint events have always been the ‘sexy’ events of any major athletics meet, yet even with Usain Bolt looming large across those games, somehow Farah found room for them to both share the spotlight. He did Bolt’s lightning celebration as the Jamaican pulled off the ‘Mobot’. In the stands and on our screens we got to see the blossoming of a new friendship, but it was much more significant than that.
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Those celebrations put Farah as an equal with the quickest man of all time and the most popular athlete we have ever seen. In his own moment of greatness, Bolt shared the attention of the adoring crowd with a hometown hero. And in doing so, he brought Farah up to his level of superstardom.
The 100m has always created global superstars, yet here was a 5,000 and 10,000m champion that was being given the same treatment. With his signature celebration, he was at the forefront of one of the greatest days of British sport, ‘Super Saturday’, along with Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford. That day will forever be remembered for the utter joy around the stadium, but with his 10k win, following the other two British successes, Farah took the atmosphere to the next level.
Cheering him for that first win was special, but Steve Cram, who so often gets his commentary right in key moments, absolutely nailed it with his 5000m win a week later.
“The arms have got to pump, the knees have got to come up high! He’s got to find something extra, he’s got to kick hard, come on Mo Farah! Farah is going to make it two gold medals for Great Britain! BEAUTIFUL! The place erupts, he is the double Olympic champion!”
Doing what he did at a home Olympics is almost impossible to beat, but Farah wasn’t done there. By 2016, he was ready to elevate his status further. Rio wasn’t anything like London, but the Somalian-born runner was still the same monster on the track. If anything, he was even better than the 2012 version.
Even without the support of his home crowd, he romped to victory in both the 5,000m and the 10,000m to become the most successful British track athlete ever. At World Championships he was equally as dominant as he won six golds and two silvers in a career that has seen him win 30 medals in total.
The track has been the place where he was crowned a legend, but now he is looking to end his career on the road. The marathon has always held this level of mystique for Farah and now he is willing to give it his all, before finally hanging up his spikes. Here’s a toast to Mo Farah, the unlikely hero who had us all screaming at our TV screens watching long distance running.
