Page 59 - Great Elizabethans

TIME TO RUN
It took Mo a while to learn English, and he often got into trouble at school because
he felt frustrated. He had always loved football, but when he was 11, his PE teacher, Alan Watkinson, suggested he take up running instead. Mr Watkinson drove him to training sessions and encouraged him to work hard. He became such an important figure in Mo’s life that when Mo got married in 2010, Mr Watkinson was his best man!
In 1997, Mo won an inter-school cross-country championship. Four years later, when he was 18, he won the European Junior 5,000 metres, with the help of a new coach, Alan Storey. It was clear now that the little boy who’d struggled to fit in had the potential to become a world-class athlete.
“The atmosphere at the Olympics was incredible; something I’ve never
experienced and will never experience again in my entire life. Running in front of 85,000 people shouting out your name. Wow! It was just unbelievable.”
ON THE TRACK TO SUCCESS
Mo continued his training in Kenya and Ethiopia, but he didn’t get beyond the semi-finals at his first Olympic Games, in 2008. Determined to do better, he began working with a new coach, and he
then won the 5,000-metre race at the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011.
Mo was now an incredibly successful runner, at the peak of his fitness. At the London 2012 Olympic Games,
with the home crowd cheering wildly for him, he became a double gold medallist, winning both the 5,000-metre and 10,000-metre races.
He went on to repeat his double-gold-winning feat four years later at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil! After taking gold and silver medals in the 2017 World Championships, Mo switched to running marathons, and won the Chicago Marathon the year after. He was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and was also knighted by the
Queen, becoming Sir Mo Farah – and he has won the European Athlete of the Year Trophy three times!
After moving around so much in his early life, and having to say goodbye to homes and family along the way,
Mo is now the most successful British track and field athlete of all time. Between 2011 and 2017, he won 10 Olympic and World Championship gold medals!
Mo is known for doing the 'Mobot' – making an M with his arms over his head – to celebrate his victories on the track.
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