Mo Farah – the little engine that could

There are a select few people on this planet who are blessed with a God-given talent to excel at basically every athletic pursuit they try their hand at. Natural sportsmen, one might call them. We’ve all met at least one in our lifetime. For me, it was a kid in school who was on the football, rugby, cricket, basketball, hockey and track and field teams, and captained most of them.

These people are generally split into three distinct categories; (1) those who are good at everything they try, (2) those who are great at everything they try, and (3) Mo Farah.

If you aren’t familiar with the name, Mohamed “Mo” Farah is a Somali-born British long distance runner. As one of the most celebrated track and field athletes in all of Great Britain and the world beyond, he was a key figure for the Great British Olympic team in the lead-up to the London Olympics last year. His fame is rightly deserved; Farah is such an accomplished athlete that, frankly, his list of achievements sounds made up.

Overall, Farah holds the European track record for the 10,000m, the British road record for the 10,000m, the British indoor record in the 3000m, the British track record for the 5000m, the British half-marathon record and the European indoor record for 5000m.

He has won double Olympic gold medals at the London 2012 Olympic Games, a gold and a silver medal at the 2011 World Championships, 3 gold and one silver medal at the European Championships, a gold at the European Cross Country Championships and two golds at the European Indoor Championships.

This guy has more bling hanging around his neck than Mr “T”. Britain had never before won a men’s long distance gold at any Olympic games heading into London 2012. Farah didn’t just win one, he won two in the space of one remarkable week last August, and in doing so joined an exclusive list of greats.

Only six other men have achieved a distance double at the same Olympics, and each remains an icon – Emil Zatopek and Lasse Viren (who won the 5,000m and 10,000m golds as Farah did), Bekele, Kuts, Kolehmainen and Yifter. Farah will now take his place in history alongside these elite names of distance running, and he will stay there forever.

“What Mo did in Monaco last week…”

Farah’s legacy is secure no matter what he went on to do after the Olympic Games. His successes in the 3,000m, 5,000m and 10,000m have firmly cemented his place in the history books. However, like all true athletes the British runner is relentlessly competitive and continues to redefine his own greatness.

Last week, Farah recorded the latest of his many accomplishments. Competing at the Diamond League in Monaco, he came in second place in the 1500m, finishing in a time of three minutes and 28.81 seconds.

Now coming in second place doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment to an athlete as decorated as Farah. But you don’t know the whole story yet.

Farah’s 3 minute, 28.81 second run was faster than British Olympic 1500m legend Seb Coe, whose personal best was 3:29.77 in 1986. In fact, Farah’s time was so fast that it broke the British record in the event; a record that has stood for almost 30 years.

But that still isn’t the full story. What if I told you that Farah’s time makes him the European track record holder and the sixth fastest man ever over the distance? Does it sound better now?

World all-time at men’s 1500m

• 3:26.00 Hicham El Guerrouj (Mor) 1998
• 3:26.34 Bernard Lagat (Ken) 2001
• 3:27.37 Noureddine Morceli (Alg) 1995
• 3:27.72 Asbel Kiprop (Ken) 2013
• 3:28.12 Noah Ngeny (Ken) 2000
• 3:28.81 Mo Farah (GB) 2013

Steve Cram, the man who set the previous British record in the 1500m back in 1985, summed up Farah’s record breaking race quite well in his column for BBC Sport. He wrote “What Mo did in Monaco last week, breaking my 28-year British record in the 1500m, was astounding and has sent shock-waves around the world.”

So why is Farah’s latest achievement so “astounding”? Records fall all the time in athletics as nutrition and training techniques improve. The record was bound to fall eventually, so why exactly has Farah sent “shock-waves around the world”?

What makes this achievement utterly ridiculous is that Farah doesn’t even run the 1500m. He doesn’t consider himself to be a 1500m runner at all, although he probably should following this performance. Throughout his entire career, Farah has been almost exclusively a 5,000m and 10,000m runner. The Londoner had simply decided to test himself in the 1500m in order to improve his speed ahead of next month’s World Championships in Moscow, where he will compete in his usual 5,000m and 10,000m disciplines. Nobody, not even the man himself, would have expected that Farah would do anything of note in a 1500m race, let alone become the fastest Briton ever over the distance.

Not satisfied there, though, Farah added further to his legacy this past weekend at the Anniversary Games. Running in the 3000m, Farah didn’t even stretch himself and still won the race by a comfortable margin; the Brit was already kissing the track before his nearest rivals crossed the finish line.

Words like “impressive” and “amazing” don’t even begin to do justice to Mo Farah. The man has an indescribable talent. He owns gold medals and record times in his two strongest events, and yet is still capable of breaking a further British record, at an unfamiliar distance, in what was essentially a sophisticated training exercise. To be able to compete in a range as vast as that from the 1500m all the way to the marathon, and not only to compete but to excel in those events, is a remarkable feat worthy of both recognition and great praise.

So how does he do it?

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary” – Vidal Sassoon

The secret, as with any great athlete, is in preparation and sheer hard work. Any athletic contest, as Muhammad Ali once put it, “is won or lost far away from witnesses , behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”

Long distance running is no different than boxing in that regard. Farah’s unparalleled success has come as a result of an uncommon work ethic and a dedication to greatness that has made him an unstoppable engine on the track.

After his success at the Olympic Games last summer, Farah’s work ethic has become the stuff of legend. In the aftermath of his double gold, the BBC’s Tom Fordyce reported on Farah’s tremendous work ethic to help us better understand the British athlete’s extraordinary standards.

“Four weeks ago at Crystal Palace, in a cold, empty stadium long since deserted by the crowds who had earlier watched him win a Diamond League 5,000m race, Mo Farah stepped back out onto the track and once again pulled on his running spikes. It was closing in on midnight, the lights low, the only people left in there were his coach Alberto Salazar, training partner Dathan Ritzenhein and a few of us journos filing late stories. As we watched on from the dark stands… Farah and Ritzenhein threw themselves into a brutal session – a 3,000m time trial, a brief recovery and then four lots of 200m sprints, each completed in exactly 26 seconds and separated only by a 200m jog.”

That is what it takes to be a true champion; the determination to work harder than everyone else to achieve your goals, and to sacrifice what you have to in order to get there. Sacrifice. It is a word Farah knows far better than most. Following his victory at the Anniversary games this weekend, the track star told the BBC about the sacrifices that he’s had to make:

“Yesterday I got a bit emotional because I haven’t seen my twin [baby] girls for nearly two months. I went to pick them up and one of them started crying, she didn’t even recognise me and that was hard as a parent when you have been away for so long. Sometimes that’s what it takes being a true athlete. Being a long distance runner is not easy, it’s not as easy as everything else or everyone would be doing what I am doing.”

He is already one of the greatest distance runners the world has ever seen, but the growing feeling after his performances at Monaco and at the Anniversary games is that we haven’t seen the last of Mo Farah. In fact, the man himself said this weekend that he is working “a lot harder” to improve in every single race. “I love what I do and I just want to train,” Farah told BBC’s Sportsweek, “I want that feeling again [winning two Olympic golds] and that makes you more of a fighter than anything else”.

Even at the ripe age of 30, with the enormous effort that Farah puts into his training, I don’t think there is a limit that can be put on his potential. He boasts a devastating mix of physical endurance, power, speed and technique combined with the sheer will to succeed in even the most pressurising atmosphere (as he did at the London Olympics). With those qualities and an insatiable hunger to succeed, I’m not sure that there is anything that Mo Farah can’t do.

Britain will now wait with bated breath to see what its favourite athlete can produce at the World Championships in Moscow in two weeks’ time. Following that, Farah has said that he will be stepping away from the track to concentrate his efforts on marathon training. Knowing Farah, the switch in focus will deliver medals and records just as it has at every other distance he’s attempted.

Beyond that, who knows what he will be able to accomplish or what distances he will conquer. Perhaps in a year’s time we will be watching him chase down his friend Usain Bolt in the 200m.

The scary part is that I’m only half joking…