Record breaker: Mo Farah has smashed the British and European records for the 10,000 metresHe had decamped to the United States in March to try to “step up to the next level” with new coach Alberto Salazar, but Mo Farah could not have dreamed the improvement would come so quickly.
On what could well prove a watershed night for British male endurance running, the Somali-born Londoner produced the greatest performance of his life at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, to smash the British and European 10,000 metres records.
Biding his time at the back of a truly world-class field before hitting the front with 2½ laps remaining, Farah blew away his opponents to cross the line in 26min 46.57sec – comfortably inside the previous 11-year-old European record of 26-52.30 held by Belgium’s Mohammed Mourhit and obliterating Jon Brown’s 1998 British mark of 27-18.14.
His time also took him to the top of this year’s world rankings, not to mention 14th on the world all-time list, and served notice that after, his 5,000-10,000m double at last summer’s European Championships in Barcelona, he is now ready to challenge for silverware at world and Olympic level.
To put his performance into context, Farah was more than 14 seconds inside the Olympic record set by Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele when he won the 10,000m gold medal in Beijing in 2008.
It was also vindication of his decision to move his family out to America three months ago to join Salazar’s ‘Oregon Project’ in search of the extra seconds that would make him competitive at this summer’s World Championships in South Korea and, more importantly, in his home city next year.
Source: The Telegraph
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