2 days ago
Sir Mo Farah: ‘My children are much safer in Qatar than London'
Sir Mo Farah doesn't much like sitting still. 'No, I can't, I can't,' he says, bobbing a tracksuited leg up and down gently. I have managed to detain him in a changing room at a cricket pavilion in West London, and it may be the double espresso he's just emptied three white sugars into before downing, but even here – beside the glimmering Thames on an idyllic summer's day, with a baying mob of retirees eager to say hello on the café terrace outside – he cannot truly rest.
He fiddles, he fidgets, he flails. 'I'm always moving. I've got an identical twin brother and he's the same, he became a mechanic because he's always got to be taking things apart,' Sir Mo says, baring that famous, near-permanent smile. 'It's maybe the reason why I was so successful. I have always been running from something. Running is the only place I felt comfortable, like I was myself.'
Sir Mo has found himself running from a lot of things over the course of his extraordinary life. As a child born in present-day Somaliland, it was war. As a supposed refugee growing up in Feltham, west London, it was a bleak and brutal domestic situation. Later it would be accusations about the company he kept as an athlete. And for a long time – far longer than it should have been, he can now admit – it was the truth. But between all that, he mostly just ran away from the competition.
Sir Mo is, without question, Britain's greatest ever track athlete. His achievement at the London 2012 Olympics, doing the long-distance double – gold in 5,000m and 10,000m – enshrined him in national legend. Doing it again four years later in Rio, a record equalled only by Finland's Lasse Virén, put him among the greatest distance athletes of all time
'I used to get a lot of criticism because I said I wasn't going after fast times, I was going after medals. But records are there to be broken,' he says. He got the medals – four Olympic golds, six world championship golds, five European championship golds – but for somebody who doesn't care about records, he doesn't do badly in that department either.
As of today, he remains the British record holder for (deep breath) the 3,000m, two miles, 8km, 10,000m, 20,000m, one hour (21,330m), 14km, 15km, 18km, 20km (road), half marathon, 25km, 30km, 20 miles and, finally, the marathon. Until recently he had the 1,500m and 5,000m, too.
He used to run 240km (149 miles) per week. Today, aged 42 and retired for two years, he barely manages 15km. 'About three runs, maybe 5k each… but just to clear my head,' he says. Dinner last night was a pizza ('Everything in moderation') but he's as slight as ever and, in full tangerine-orange Nike running kit, looks about 25, albeit with the energy of a toddler.
'Hi, hi, good morning!' he announced to a startled café as he bounced through earlier this morning. It was the cheerful confidence of a man asked to light up a lot of rooms, especially classrooms.
Sir Mo's trademark on the track was to sit mid-pack and stay with the pace, however fast, until the final lap or two, at which point he'd hare off, knowing he could reach a sprint pace nobody on the planet could match after already running so far. Invariably he'd close 10,000m races with a sub-53-second 400m. Sit-and-kick, the tactic is called. Nobody did it better.
He retired in September 2023. A year prior to that, when his career was entering its last year and his giddy time in the public eye was coming to an end, it turned out his story had a final incredible kick, too. In a shocking BBC documentary, The Real Mo Farah, he revealed that he was in fact born with the name Hussein Abdi Kahin. His mother had sent him away to Djibouti during the Somali Civil War, before he was trafficked to Britain at the age of nine by a woman he had never met, and then forced to work as a domestic servant.
The woman gave him the name of her real son, Mohamed Farah, and forced him to cook, clean and care for her younger children. His real mother remained in Somalia, as did his twin brother and six other siblings. His real father was killed by a stray bullet during the civil war when Sir Mo was four.
Until then, Sir Mo had told the British public that he, his mother and two of his siblings had come to Britain to live with his father, an IT consultant, in London. Even his wife, Tania, who met him at college, only found out just prior to their wedding in 2010.
'I didn't talk about it before because I didn't have the courage,' Sir Mo says today. 'I didn't want to admit it. And I wouldn't have been able to achieve what I have achieved.'
Sir Mo rarely went to primary school, but attended Feltham Community College full-time. There, in year 7, aged 12, he told his PE teacher, Alan Watkinson, the truth about how he arrived in the UK. A few days later, social services removed him from the home he'd worked in servitude in, and his childhood began in earnest when he moved in with a family friend.
'I didn't have a childhood. Which is sad, but it's about what you do now,' he says. 'Years later I'd be daydreaming, watching my kids. They'd be nine, say, and I'd be thinking about what I was doing at nine. We have this nice house, nice car, but I [had been] sleeping in a tiny room with six people on a mattress.'
At times, Tania would catch him lost in reverie and ask him what he was thinking about. When he told her, she urged him to get therapy, but Sir Mo resisted. 'Honestly, running was my therapy. I never went to see someone, but the best thing for me was to understand how it happened. If it wasn't for my wife, and seeing my kids, I'd never have done anything.'
Sir Mo is still frequently in touch with Hassan, his identical twin brother, who remains in Somalia. Less so the rest of his family. In the film, the disparity in wealth when Farah is greeted in Somalia like a prodigal son, is stark. Did anybody we met in the documentary ask him for money? 'Of course. I'm not going to talk about it, but a lot of people did, because they felt like they've got a connection to me now.' Your nice life. 'Yeah, a nice car, a nice house…'
And what of the other Mo Farah, the boy whose identity he was given when he was flown to the UK. A taciturn figure, he appeared briefly on a video call, with Farah promising to facilitate a visit to Britain. Are they in touch?
'No, I don't speak to him. I just wanted to know if he was OK, for my own mind. I wanted to see where he is, so to then be taken advantage of, him saying, 'I need this, I need this', it was hard. It was so difficult for me to deal with that. I was just like, I'm not his father, I'm not his parents…' He looks briefly despondent.
I wonder if Sir Mo thinks there are still trafficked children locked in servitude in London. He nods. 'I think there's a lot of stuff going on. And the hardest thing was getting facts. I didn't even know what child trafficking meant until I saw a specialist and they told me, 'That's you, that's your case'. And people stay in these situations because they're scared. There are cultural differences, language barriers, and there are lots of things we can tackle.'
Britain, he says, is still 'more welcoming than anywhere else to foreigners'. He drove to London this week from Paris, 'and you look at the streets there, with the homeless people. It was like, 'Wow'. My kids were asking me questions about it. But I'm proud to be British, this is a country where you can have an opportunity to create things […] Who would have thought, a boy from Feltham who was child-trafficked would be getting an honorary degree from Oxford University, a knighthood from the Queen…'
This being said, Sir Mo and his family are temporarily living abroad again, 15 years after they moved to Portland, Oregon, for seven years for his training. After years of putting his career first, he told his children – stepdaughter Rihanna is 20, and a recent graduate of the Brit School, twins Aisha and Amani are 12, and his son Hussein is nine – he would fully prioritise them once he retired.
As part of that, he made the decision to relocate the family to Qatar last year, in part to let his children get on with their lives without the distraction of their father's fame. 'It's a little bit challenging for them when they're with me and I'm getting recognised. I want them to be kids. [The move] is purely for my kids and their privacy for the time being. I'd never really stopped, so I wanted somewhere quiet where I could separate my work from family. And the kids are happy, that's the key thing.'
The intention is to return to Britain, but at the moment he believes Qatar, specifically Doha, is 'much safer. My kids have signed up for a gym and they can go by themselves there. It's much safer than London. I started to worry, living in London, because you can educate your kids as much as you can, but if they get in the wrong place at the wrong time, you see a lot of stuff happening. That's a worry.'
Qatar is seen as a neutral, key player in attempting to broker peace in the Middle East, but Iranian missile strikes on a US military base in the Gulf state in June threatened to change that.
Sir Mo shakes his head. He and the family, who maintain a house in Weybridge, Surrey, were in Britain at the time. 'We were here, and at the moment it seems fine… It's scary of course, but it is for all of us around the world. You've got to take each day as it comes, and luckily it wasn't anywhere near where we live.'
Despite the move, Sir Mo has far from abandoned Britain. He always wears the Union Flag bracelet he has on today, and feels 'very proud to be British, to have had the opportunity to have a life here and make the most of it. The best feeling is representing your country.'
Some are surprised he's not become a coach, helping the next generation in British athletics. 'I've got my coaching licence, and it's something I'll do if I find the right project and the right thing to give back to.' Currently, though, his two projects are a new AI-powered coaching app, Urunn, and working as an ambassador for the Youth Sports Trust.
'My big mission is to get kids active, because physical education has been reduced far too much at school level since 2012. I'm trying to challenge the Government to put more money into sports and PE. It's about getting them moving, because from mental health to obesity, there's so much the Government could help [with].'
Sir Mo's pressure contributed to the Government recently announcing a new national network to build partnerships between schools, local clubs and national governing bodies 'to identify and break down barriers to sport for children who are less active'.
'I've got four kids myself, it's not easy to get them moving. Clubs cost a lot, and I'm lucky I can support them.' Do his kids eat healthily? 'It's a challenge, I'm not going to lie. But it's a balance in our household. You can have a treat day, I don't mind, but you've to look after your body. So I educate them.'
Sir Mo famously had two Big Macs and a strawberry milkshake at midnight after winning his 10,000m gold on Super Saturday. 'I never count calories, but I make sure it's balanced. Occasionally if I want sticky toffee pudding, I'm having a sticky toffee pudding.'
I wonder what he makes of weight-loss jabs. 'I don't agree with it,' he responds instantly. 'It's just a shortcut. If my kids said they wanted to do that, I'd say 'No. Why?' You can do something, just get active, move more, cycle. For youngsters it's hard, because they just want an easy way out.'
Arguably few people understand the wider societal benefits of sport quite like Sir Mo, who found safety, friends and purpose when Watkinson first put him on a running track 30 years ago. Many hoped that London 2012 would inspire (and fund) a new generation who would become brilliant track stars. The consensus is that the Games' legacy has been disappointing.
'A lot was promised, but how do we fulfil that? It's so easy to complain and go, 'This was promised, that was promised', but you've got to do something. We can start by getting kids active. We need to keep going with pressure,' Sir Mo says.
'It shouldn't tail off, because there's so much at stake. With living costs, it's hard times, but we can't forget the youngsters. Because if we forget them, what's going to happen? The crime rate will go up. If that goes up, we get a recession. So what do we need to do as a nation? We need to keep building ideas and knocking on the higher power. We have to invest in sport, not just for crime, but health.'
Urunn, the app Farah has founded with his friend and former training partner Adam Clarke, is seizing on a moment when recreational running is booming. There are other apps that help coach people to personal bests – notably Runna, which was bought this year by tech giant Strava – but Urunn promises to go further with 'hyper-personalised' plans designed by Sir Mo and Clarke themselves.
Currently, rival apps can be fairly rigid: here's your plan, off you go. Urunn, on the other hand, promises flexibility. Whether users are running to boost their mental health or to train for a marathon, Sir Mo says they will have a constant dialogue, and opportunity for people to connect with a wider running community.
'I'm not just the face of this, the investor; I'm the co-founder, this is our baby and I want to educate people through running. We won't just give people a programme you follow; we'll ask for feedback about how people feel, whether you have injuries, whether you're sleeping enough, what you want to change. We're constantly communicating.'
It's often been said, but there is a lightness about Sir Mo in retirement. The pressure of competing is off, as are the questions about his career. In the final few years of his time as a runner, when he gave up the track and became a road marathoner (despite holding the British record and winning the Chicago Marathon, he doesn't consider that chapter a particular success), he was forever dogged by his association with the American coach Alberto Salazar.
Once feted for his radical training techniques and repeated successes, Salazar received a four-year ban in 2019 for doping offences. Two years later, he received a lifetime ban from involvement in any Olympic or Paralympic sport for emotional and sexual misconduct. Farah, who never failed a drugs test, left Salazar's team in 2017. What he knew, and when, were the questions the press repeatedly asked him.
'It was frustrating, but regardless, I was part of it, I existed in that [training] group. At times it was very difficult, but as long as I was honest, deep down I knew I was never involved in that stuff.'
Does he regret working with him?
'I wouldn't say I have regrets, but I would have loved to have known at the time, so I could have gone, 'I'm out'. That would have been the easiest thing, but the kind of man I am, I give people the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it took far too long for that to happen, for me to know.'
He still keeps a close eye on athletics, and launched the team-based RunGP league earlier this year to use F1 tracks for distance-running events. The 'super shoes' debate – whether ultra-advanced, ultra-fast carbon-plated trainers are making running too much about technology than talent – is futile, he thinks. 'It's technology. Every shoe company is on the same playing field now. And it's like your iPhone having extra battery. The shoes have just meant people can train harder than ever, so they're running faster times.'
Of the current British talents, George Mills, the son of former England footballer Danny, who recently took his 5,000m record, has impressed him. So too Keely Hodgkinson, Josh Kerr and Georgia Bell. The great objective in distance running, though, remains the two-hour barrier for an official marathon in open competition.
Sir Mo smiles. 'I think we might see the women's four-minute mile before we see the two-hour marathon.' In June, in a special Nike event, Kenyan Faith Kipyegon had a go at that, finishing in four minutes, six seconds. A new world record, but still a way off.
'I watched that, and thought things just didn't come together. They just need to calculate where's the best position on the track,' Sir Mo says. Ever the tactician, he then sets off explaining precisely how the pacemakers should have been running in order to maximise wind resistance and give Kipyegon a better shot next time. He really would make a good coach.
He needs to move. Sir Mo will be in London for much of the summer, though not, as the tabloids have insisted, to start rehearsing for Strictly Come Dancing. 'No, put money on me not doing it. They've asked me a few times, but I can't dance,' he says, grinning.
As he springs to his feet, lopes outside and twirls to greet the ever-increasing heat, it's difficult to believe it. Sir Mo Farah is now weightless. 'Right,' he announces, to no one in particular, 'let's go!'
