Greg Rutherford was defending his Olympic title, Mo Farah was hoping to make it third time lucky, and the incredible Jessica Ennis-Hill was hoping to take home the Gold medal in the Heptathlon.
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His hopes briefly looked in danger when he was accidentally tripped by training partner Galen Rupp with 16 laps to go, but he recovered to surge past Tanui on the home straight.
An emotional Farah said: “When you fall down it is hard mentally and you get emotional, but I had to believe in myself and work through it”.
“I promised my eldest daughter Rihanna a medal so I couldn’t let her down”.
Nobody who could catch him.
Tanui, who has won two world championship bronze medals over 10,000 had to settle for silver, with Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola getting bronze.
The former OR great finished fifth in 27:08.92.
“When I fell down, for a moment I thought my race was over, my dream was over but then I managed to dig deep”.
“It was early on in the race, I was lucky”.
Reigning World Cross-Country champion Karoki who had technically stuck with Farah from the start, later faded and finished seventh in a time of 27:22.93 and blamed his lackluster performance on a short time of training after returning from injury, while Kamworor, who complained of breathing problems that he started experiencing after the fifth lap finished 11th in a time of 27:3194.
Mo Farah successfully defended his 10,000-meter title as he battled to victory to secure his place as one of the best long-distance runners of all time.
Responding, Kenny said: “I will give it my go”. “There was a lot of pushing, guys slowing down in front and pushing from behind, but that’s normal. I’m just grateful he was still able to run his race”.
“I got really emotional as I crossed the line”, added Farah. Rupp ran an impressive race, but lacked the speed down the stretch.
“Things happen sometimes; it is so easy to blame people”, Farah said. “I have got such a long stride, I don’t blame him”.
“I always wanted to do it for her”.
“We tried hard but coming from an injury wasn’t in tiptop form”.
The Briton recovered quickly and flashed the American a thumbs-up as he refound his rhythm behind Tola, Tanui and his teammate Geoffrey Kamworor, the reigning world cross country champion and the victor of the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships earlier this year. But the last four, five weeks I’ve done some great speed workouts and was sprinting as well as I ever have, so I was confident in my kick. Should he achieve the feat, he would become only the second man after Lasse Viren in 1976 to retain two Olympic distance titles. “He’s just a great competitor”.
Farah will now turn his attention to Wednesday where he will defend his 5,000m Olympic title.
“London was unbelievable this was even better”.
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Although he’d welcome a little simpler race next Saturday.
