Farah Wins His Second Gold Medal For Britain, In The 5,000m

Aug 12, 2012

British runner Mo Farah has won the men’s 5,000 meters, sending Olympic Stadium into a frenzy. His time of 13:41.66 barely edged Dejen Gebremeskel of Ethiopia.

Farah is now the sixth man in Olympic history to have won both the 5,000m and 10,000m events at the same Summer Games. He emerged at the front of the pack 700 meters from the finish, and held on to stay ahead of Gebremeskel.

Rk Bib Athlete Mark
1 1808 Great BritainFARAH Mohamed 13:41.66
FARAH Mohamed
2 1688 EthiopiaGEBREMESKEL Dejen 13:41.98
GEBREMESKEL Dejen
3 2310 KenyaLONGOSIWA Thomas Pkemei 13:42.36
LONGOSIWA Thomas Pkemei
4 3231 United States of AmericaLAGAT Bernard 13:42.99
5 2307 KenyaKOECH Isiah Kiplangat 13:43.83
6 2456 MoroccoIGUIDER Abdalaati 13:44.19
7 3250 United States of AmericaRUPP Galen 13:45.04
8 2495 MexicoBARRIOS Juan Luis 13:45.30
9 1095 AzerbaijanIBRAHIMOV Hayle 13:45.37
10 3232 United States of AmericaLOMONG Lopez 13:48.19
11 1689 EthiopiaGEBRHIWET Hagos 13:49.59
12 1677 EthiopiaALAMIREW Yenew 13:49.68
13 1553 DjiboutiGALA Mumin 13:50.26
14 1293 CanadaLEVINS Cameron 13:51.87
15 3114 UgandaKIPSIRO Moses Ndiema 13:52.25

Bio

Born in Mogadishu, Somalia on 23 March 1983, Farah spent the majority of his childhood in Djibouti.  He later moved to Britain at the age of 8 years old to join his father, speaking barely a word of English. Farah’s father was born in England and grew up in Hounslow, London; his parents met after his father went on holiday to Somalia.

For his education, he attended Feltham Community College in London. Farah’s athletic talent was identified by physical education teacher Alan Watkinson at Isleworth and Syon School, who later said of him: “When I first met him, he was struggling academically and suffering from the language barrier. He needed focus and I sort of took him under my wing. His passion was football but it was his turn of speed on the pitch that showed his real talent.” His ambition was to play as a right winger for Arsenal and Watkinson would encourage Farah by allowing him to play half an hour of football before their training sessions.