For Mo Farah, retaining his 10,000m title and becoming the first British track and field athlete to win three Olympic gold medals boils down to a single cold fact: whether he can run the last lap in 53 seconds. That is the target he has worked towards all year. Because his victories from London 2012 onwards have taught him that if the final comes down to a thundering crescendo in the final 400m, none of his opponents will be able to keep up.
There are two great unanswered questions in all this, however. The first is whether Farah is in the form to uncork a last lap that takes the world’s and his opponents’ breath away.
The 33-year-old has performed well all year but pronounced himself satisfied with only one race – his 5,000m at last month’s Anniversary Games, where he ran the fastest time of the world this year.
The second is whether his Kenyan rivals, and particularly Geoffrey Kamworor – who took silver behind Farah at last year’s world championships in Beijing – can write a different script, which takes the Briton out of his comfort zone.
The Kenyans did so at the world half-marathon championships in Cardiff, charging off at the start before dropping Farah after five miles, and will need to do something similar again. The word from the Kenyan camp is that Kamworor is back to his best after pulling out of his country’s trials last month. He will need to be to have any hope of gold.
Farah, though, says he is not going to let anyone get in his way as he strides towards history. “It would be amazing to win three golds, or even four,” he said. “I’m not going to lie to you, I’m in decent shape as it shows. The 5km at the Anniversary Games was good for me. I ticked the boxes.”
He believes the Kenyans are brewing something and says he is prepared for it. “It’s four years so they’ve had to come up with something,” he said. “So I’ve changed a few things in training to think what they’re going to do and work on certain things.”
Inevitably competing for a gold medal on the same day that Greg Rutherford and Jessica Ennis-Hill also try to defend their Olympic titles brings back memories of London 2012’s Super Saturday for Farah. “I remember two or three days before my race I came in the village, got my accreditation and went down to the stadium,” he said. “And then before the 10,000m, hearing the crowd, it was just incredible.
“That race changed my life 100%. I remember someone saying to me: ‘Do you know what’s going to happen, your life could change.’ I was like: ‘Nah man, I’ll be all right.’ And then, winning it I couldn’t go outside. I did get outside to see my family and that, so I wore hoodie, sunglasses, jumped on the train and saw my family. It did change. I couldn’t be Mo walking down the street.
“But it’s definitely worth it. I wouldn’t change anything. I’m very proud of what I have achieved. My childhood dream’s come true, to become Olympic champion. To say I’ve got two Olympic gold medals is pretty amazing. I’d be devastated if I didn’t win two more golds in Rio.”
If Farah does do the long-distance track double again, he would be only the second man after Lasse Viren to do it at successive Olympics. But he will not be back for a third attempt in Tokyo 2020 as he wants to spend more time with his family. “It gets harder. The twins are more aware of it. But this chance ain’t going to come round again. I have to make the most of it and win medals for them and hopefully that will make me feel better. I will see Tania and Rihanna in Rio. I won’t see the twins and Hussein.”
For now, though, he is focused purely on the present. “I’ll wake up, go for breakfast, chill out, go for a little jog, two to three miles, come back, have a nap in the afternoon, shave my head, maybe trim down the beard a bit,” he said. “I eat lunch and then sleep, wake up, try and come off the coffee a bit, which is hard because I get a headache.”
In the early evening before the race he will eat porridge and then listen to Dizzee Rascal. And then, once again, he will try to put his opponents in a spin.
