Mo Farah cruises to easy win in 3,000m to revive memories of last year
• Olympic double champion in stunning form again
• Farah warms up nicely for world championships
• Farah warms up nicely for world championships
Mo Farah checks out
the other runners on his way to winning the 3,000m in the London
Anniversary Games at the Olympic Stadium. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for
the Observer
As he cruised home at least 30 metres clear of the pack to win an effortless 3,000m on his return to the Olympic Stadium, Mo Farah confessed that memories of a much more highly charged Saturday were flooding his mind.
It is a sign of this stadium's centrality to the Farah story that the first thing he could think of doing after making it three wins out of three here was to promise to be back for the world championships in 2017. "I got really emotional about it coming in, thinking about that race again," he said. "The crowd was similar to what they were like at the Olympics. It was nice to come out here one more time and win." Farah hit the front 600m out and came home in a personal best time of 7min 36.86sec at a distance he rarely runs.
After the race Farah appeared to suggest he would turn his back on the track to focus on the marathon after the world championships next month. Asked by Sky Sports whether he would give up the track for good, he said: "We'll see, it depends. If I'm good at the marathon and it works well, you could see me in the marathon [in Rio]. If it doesn't work out, you could see me back on the track."
Yet Farah's agent, Ricky Simms, insisted that while he would run the London Marathon next April, the plan remained for him to return to the track next summer. "Mo is running the London Marathon next year but has no other marathons in the diary and will return to the track next summer as planned," he said.
If the first night of this sold-out, two-day nostalgia fest had been unashamedly the Usain Bolt show, the second was a chance to pay homage to last year's Saturday night heroics by Farah and Jessica Ennis-Hill.
While the latter approaches the world championships with uncertainty and injury concerns, Farah is in imperious mood. Last week he smashed Steve Cram's British 1500m record in Monaco and speculation before the race centered on whether he could add David Moorcroft's 31-year-old 3,000m record of 7:32.79 to his collection. But it soon became clear that the pacemaker, Ismael Kombich, was not going quick enough to put the record in reach and Farah said he had decided with his coach, Alberto Salazar, not to attempt it. Instead, his overriding concern was to prepare for his attempt to become a double world champion in the 5,000m and 10,000m in a fortnight.
"I've had a few heavy weeks in training. The aim is Moscow. I was never going to go for a record. It would have taken a lot out of me. I wanted to win the race and get something out of it," said the 30-year-old.
The usually laid-back Farah admitted before the race that he felt "really emotional" to be back on the track where he won the Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m titles in the space of one remarkable week, particularly with his twin baby girls looking on.
Roared on by spectators eager to grab the last lingering remnants of the magic that filled the stadium last summer, Farah tucked in behind the Ethiopian Tariku Bekele and his American training partner Dathan Ritzenhein before moving up to second with two laps left.
By the bell, he was giving the crowd the show they had come to see. Mixing up his preparation for Moscow at distances anywhere between 1500m and a half-marathon, Farah has this season delivered at every turn – usually in emphatic, crowd-pleasing style.
If Bolt remains this sport's consummate showman, Farah said he had been watching the Jamaican, with whom he shares an agent, for tips on how to stay cool as a marked man. "Every time you race everyone knows what you're capable of and you're a marked man with an X on your back. It's good for the sport, it's what it needs. I've learned a lot from Usain Bolt, the way he comes out and keeps breaking records and stays relaxed."
An injury-free Farah has been able to churn through 100 miles-plus a week in training and said he felt at least as good as he did before his career-defining Olympics. But it is clear that even double Olympic gold has not erased memories of Daegu, where he went into the 10,000m as favourite but was out-kicked by the then virtually unknown Ethiopian Ibrahim Jeilan. "You've always got new guys and sometimes they're more hungry than anyone else," he said.
As the 65,000 crowd drifted away, Farah was still running laps of the track with his training group as Salazar barked orders at them.
The British hurdler William Sharman was another who was inspired by his surroundings. Having burst on to the scene when he finished fourth in the 2009 world championships, he has struggled intermittently with injury since. He recorded a personal best of 13.26 in a final during which the Olympic champion Aries Merritt fell, to narrowly finish second behind the American David Oliver.
Sharman said he was targeting a medal in Moscow, vowing to finish ahead of Oliver next time. "There's no point going there unless I'm aiming for a medal. This was my Olympics because I didn't get to run last year," he said.
Luke Cutts achieved a personal best in the pole vault, clearing 5.70m to finish fourth behind the ebullient Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie with a season's best of 6.02m. Chris Tomlinson looks likely to miss out on the world championships, after failing to reach the qualifying A standard of 8.25m in the long jump.
It is a sign of this stadium's centrality to the Farah story that the first thing he could think of doing after making it three wins out of three here was to promise to be back for the world championships in 2017. "I got really emotional about it coming in, thinking about that race again," he said. "The crowd was similar to what they were like at the Olympics. It was nice to come out here one more time and win." Farah hit the front 600m out and came home in a personal best time of 7min 36.86sec at a distance he rarely runs.
After the race Farah appeared to suggest he would turn his back on the track to focus on the marathon after the world championships next month. Asked by Sky Sports whether he would give up the track for good, he said: "We'll see, it depends. If I'm good at the marathon and it works well, you could see me in the marathon [in Rio]. If it doesn't work out, you could see me back on the track."
Yet Farah's agent, Ricky Simms, insisted that while he would run the London Marathon next April, the plan remained for him to return to the track next summer. "Mo is running the London Marathon next year but has no other marathons in the diary and will return to the track next summer as planned," he said.
If the first night of this sold-out, two-day nostalgia fest had been unashamedly the Usain Bolt show, the second was a chance to pay homage to last year's Saturday night heroics by Farah and Jessica Ennis-Hill.
While the latter approaches the world championships with uncertainty and injury concerns, Farah is in imperious mood. Last week he smashed Steve Cram's British 1500m record in Monaco and speculation before the race centered on whether he could add David Moorcroft's 31-year-old 3,000m record of 7:32.79 to his collection. But it soon became clear that the pacemaker, Ismael Kombich, was not going quick enough to put the record in reach and Farah said he had decided with his coach, Alberto Salazar, not to attempt it. Instead, his overriding concern was to prepare for his attempt to become a double world champion in the 5,000m and 10,000m in a fortnight.
"I've had a few heavy weeks in training. The aim is Moscow. I was never going to go for a record. It would have taken a lot out of me. I wanted to win the race and get something out of it," said the 30-year-old.
The usually laid-back Farah admitted before the race that he felt "really emotional" to be back on the track where he won the Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m titles in the space of one remarkable week, particularly with his twin baby girls looking on.
Roared on by spectators eager to grab the last lingering remnants of the magic that filled the stadium last summer, Farah tucked in behind the Ethiopian Tariku Bekele and his American training partner Dathan Ritzenhein before moving up to second with two laps left.
By the bell, he was giving the crowd the show they had come to see. Mixing up his preparation for Moscow at distances anywhere between 1500m and a half-marathon, Farah has this season delivered at every turn – usually in emphatic, crowd-pleasing style.
If Bolt remains this sport's consummate showman, Farah said he had been watching the Jamaican, with whom he shares an agent, for tips on how to stay cool as a marked man. "Every time you race everyone knows what you're capable of and you're a marked man with an X on your back. It's good for the sport, it's what it needs. I've learned a lot from Usain Bolt, the way he comes out and keeps breaking records and stays relaxed."
An injury-free Farah has been able to churn through 100 miles-plus a week in training and said he felt at least as good as he did before his career-defining Olympics. But it is clear that even double Olympic gold has not erased memories of Daegu, where he went into the 10,000m as favourite but was out-kicked by the then virtually unknown Ethiopian Ibrahim Jeilan. "You've always got new guys and sometimes they're more hungry than anyone else," he said.
As the 65,000 crowd drifted away, Farah was still running laps of the track with his training group as Salazar barked orders at them.
The British hurdler William Sharman was another who was inspired by his surroundings. Having burst on to the scene when he finished fourth in the 2009 world championships, he has struggled intermittently with injury since. He recorded a personal best of 13.26 in a final during which the Olympic champion Aries Merritt fell, to narrowly finish second behind the American David Oliver.
Sharman said he was targeting a medal in Moscow, vowing to finish ahead of Oliver next time. "There's no point going there unless I'm aiming for a medal. This was my Olympics because I didn't get to run last year," he said.
Luke Cutts achieved a personal best in the pole vault, clearing 5.70m to finish fourth behind the ebullient Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie with a season's best of 6.02m. Chris Tomlinson looks likely to miss out on the world championships, after failing to reach the qualifying A standard of 8.25m in the long jump.
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