Mo Farah triumphed on his return to the track after the doping claims levelled at his coach but immediately ran into more controversy by reigniting his feud with his British team-mate Andy Vernon.
After their 5,000m Diamond League race, which Farah won with a trademark last-lap surge against a high-quality field, Vernon said that he approached the double Olympic champion to congratulate him and was told to “fuck off”.
The pair became engaged in an extraordinary public row this year, when Vernon accused Farah, on Twitter, of running against “joke” fields in Britain. Farah retaliated before the Birmingham indoor grand prix by accusing Vernon of questioning his nationality when the pair won 10,000m gold and silver at last year’s European championships.
Farah, under intense pressure in recent weeks since the BBC’s Panorama made doping allegations about Alberto Salazar, which the coach has denied, was a picture of delight when he crossed the line. But Vernon claimed things turned ugly immediately afterwards when he tried to bury the hatchet before he travels to Font Romeu where Farah has been training.
“I went to shake his hand and he turned his back on me and told me to fuck off. I’m glad you saw it. I wanted to bury the hatchet, I’m going up to Font Romeu in a few days’ time and I just wanted to end it,” said Vernon, who finished 15th. “It’s in the past, I don’t know why we can’t just forget about it. He’s done to me a lot worse than I’ve done to him and to not even be a sportsman there and shake my hand I think is pretty disgraceful, to be honest.
“With all the bad publicity he’s getting at the moment I would have thought he would try to actually make a good name for himself again but by doing that it’s not too good for him,” added Vernon. “Like in the armed forces, you salute the rank, not the person sometimes. I wanted to congratulate the performance. Whether we’re friends or not, I can appreciate a good performance so I’d like to congratulate him but I get that reaction.”
Both parties had earlier said they wanted to draw a line under the embarrassing row in February. Last month Vernon said he was “not surprised” that Farah had chosen to stick with Salazar but added that if he could deal with any backlash then “good luck to him”. Asked whether there was an incident with Vernon after the race, Farah said: “I don’t know, not that I saw,” and refused to comment further.
The incident took the gloss off a cathartic victory for Farah against a high-class field. “The race had everybody in it, it wasn’t an easy race, it was like a mini-worlds. I wanted to come out here and race against the guys before the worlds, I was happy with the way I finished the race, I enjoyed it,” he said. “As an athlete you just have to do what you best. The last couple of weeks have been hard for my family and everyone else. But what can you do? You just want to run and that’s what I did and I enjoyed it.”
