Mo Farah’s body felt more beaten up than usual after his thrilling 10,000m world championship gold last Saturday because of the unusually hard track in the Bird’s Nest, his coach, Alberto Salazar, has revealed. Salazar, however, insists the extra rest day at these championships between the 10,000m and Saturday’s 5,000m final means Farah is back to 100% – and primed to secure a unique triple-double of three 5,000m and 10,000m gold medals in a row.
Farah said he felt in the shape of his life after stretching away to beat the Kenyans Geoffrey Kipsang Kamworor and Paul Tanui to win the 10,000m and it is hard to see how anyone in the 5,000m field can stop the Briton repeating his favourite trick: tracking the pace for most of the race before taking the lead between 600m and 400m and bursting clear down the home straight.
During his last training session before coming to Beijing he ran a series of hard-paced intervals that culminated in a 51-second 400m at altitude. None of his rivals can live with that.
One who – on his very best form – comes close is the Commonwealth Games 5,000m champion Caleb Ndiku. The Kenyans call him the Buffalo and he insists he can add to his country’s medal stampede.
“My weight is reduced, my body is feeling great,” said Ndiku after Wednesday’s heats. “All I know is that I have trained well but this year I have not done many races, so it is hard to be sure. But if my body and God allow me, I will give Farah a battle.”
Ndiku’s confidence is not misplaced. Like Farah he is a startlingly good 1,500m runner – his personal best of 3:29.50, set two years ago when he was only 20, is only 0.69sec behind Farah’s best. The problem is the Kenyan missed most of the winter through injury and was also unable to train for two weeks after injuring himself during the Lausanne Diamond League meeting in early July. “I am still strong,” he said. “And I can get better. When I ran that time I did, I had some problems but in the future I can run 3:27.”
Ndiku has spoken to his fellow Kenyans Edwin Soi and Isiah Koech about working together to try to beat Farah. “We are planning something for Farah but I am not going to tell you,” he said, smiling.
The other dangers to Farah will come from Ethiopia – in the shape of the 18-year-old Yomif Kejelcha, who has run the fastest 5,000m time in the world this year, and the 21-year-old Hagos Gebrhiwet, who took silver behind Farah at the Moscow world championships in 2013.
It was also Gebrhiwet who achieved a rare victory over Farah in the 3,000m in Doha in May but that came in unusual circumstances. Surprisingly, Farah found himself boxed in at the bell, so when Kejelcha struck for home from 350m out he was unable to immediately respond and burned up too much energy when he did so. Gebrhiwet was good enough to stay in Farah’s slipstream and beat him in a sprint finish. Farah is such a good race general he surely will not allow the Ethiopians to snare him the same way again.
Salazar, who earlier this week said Farah would definitely be staying with him, whatever the outcome of British Athletics’ independent enquiry into their relationship, has also revealed Farah is considering an audacious attempt at the 1500m world indoor title in Portland next March.
“It is not confirmed yet because Mo will be spending much of January and February training in either Kenya or Ethiopia,” Salazar said. “But Mo asked me about it and I’m keen. For years he has had the pressure of everyone trying to beat him over 5,000m and 10,000m but at 1500m the pressure would be off.”
Salazar said earlier in the week he expected the United States Anti-Doping Agency investigation to find no evidence against him or any of his Nike Oregon Project training group. He sounded even more confident when speaking to the Oregonian. “They will find Jimmy Hoffa’s body first,” he said.
