Farah won Olympic gold in dramatic fashion after being accidentally tripped up in the early stages of his 10,000m final on Saturday night.
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But he brilliantly recovered to accumulate a second 10,000m title to add to the 5,000m gold he also won in London four years ago.
Tanui took silver, with Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola claiming bronze. “With a mile to go, I felt like I was still strong and had a lot of energy so let me push and see what happens”.
Farah is a legend of British athletics – even before he stepped on the track today, there was no doubt he’ll go down in history as one of their most fondly-remembered athletes in the history of distance running.
At the last two World Championships – where Farah has both times done the double – the Kenyans, Ugandans and Ethiopians have teamed up to throw everything at him.
Farah had made a decision to sit at the back of the field at the start of the race before surging through to the front.
“If wasn’t going to make the final I at least wanted to walk away from the track knowing I’ve done all I can, but I didn’t this time”.
“These are stressful events at times for that exact same scenario – you saw big names go out of the qualification yet again – I was very almost close to being one of them”.
It was his eighth successive win in the 5,000 or 10,000m at a world championships or Olympics since 2011, when Ibrahim Jeilan beat him over 10,000m in the Daegu world championships.
“At one point I thought the race was over, I managed to get through it”, Farah told Sky Sports News HQ.
“I thought going into the race an Olympic record could have been broken”.
“Well run #Ken. Congratulations Tanui for the Silver medal in the 10,000m race #OlympicGames #Athletics great race #ShangiliaKenya”, President Uhuru Kenyatta wrote on Twitter moments after the epic final that had it all, despite the all too familiar outcome.
Farah, who goes in the 5000m next week, is hoping to become the first man since Finland’s Lasse Viren in 1976 to defend two distance titles at the Olympics. I came here to win but couldn’t quite get it together. I’ve had such a tough time getting here and I have to keep telling myself I should be proud for getting here.
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American Jeff Henderson took gold with a final-round effort of 8.38m, denying South Africa’s Luvo Manyonga by a centimetre, and the Briton was down in fourth until producing his best attempt with his last jump.
