Mo Farah will attempt to clinch the “double double” in Rio, as Team GB hopes to continue its gold rush following a historic day of competition.
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The British great produced one of his trademark controlled runs, topped with a blistering finish, to win the 5,000-meter gold medal Saturday and cap his second straight Olympic long-distance double.
He dedicated his two Olympic golds from London 2012 to his twin daughters Aisha and Amani, who were born shortly after those successes, and said his 10,000m gong in Rio was for his oldest daughter Rhianna.
Farah, who has now won more world and Olympic titles than Ethiopian great Kenenisa Bekele, said: “I’ll leave it to the public”. “My legs were a bit exhausted after the 10k I don’t now how I recovered”.
Richardson-Walsh and wife Helen became the first same-sex married couple to win an Olympic gold in the same final and the first married couple to win medals in more than 110 years.
Farah, who trains in OR under ex-marathon great Alberto Salazar, said watching Ethiopian distance legend Kenenisa Bekele medalling had been an inspiration. “I just want to see my kids and hang this medal around their necks”, said Farah.
Farah’s win propels Team GB’s gold medal haul to 27, cementing Great Britain’s number two spot on the medals table behind the United States.
“To be able to carry on from 2012 four years later, the legacy has changed since 2012”.
It should have been a chance for his rivals to hunt him down but once again he proved that whatever strategy they put in place he had the answers, producing a devastating 52-second final lap.
Speaking about his incredible success, Mo said: “It shows I didn’t just fluke it in London”.
Allyson Felix helped the USA team finish ahead of Jamaica (3:20.34) with a season best run of 3:19.06.
“More people are doing sport, we’re winning more”.
With five laps to run, Farah was well positioned in second and then took over the lead, immediately dropping the pace so the pack bunched back up.
The victory sealed a distance double for Farah last achieved when Viren triumphed in the 1972 and 1976 Games in Munich and Montreal. “I remember Sir Alex Ferguson got it because he was at Manchester United, and Sir Steve Redgrave for what he did, and to be able be in the same category as them would be pretty wonderful”.
“Mo Farah, for services to athletics deserves to be Sir Mo Farah. I’m going back to work hard and train hard because now I have motivation behind me”.
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“And once I got going I went to the front and was like, “These guys, I know they are going to be thinking about me, I’m going to control this” – and I controlled it”. “I have four children and I wanted four medals, one for each of them”.
