Mo Farah

Sport: Track and Field

Nation: Great Britain

DOB: March 23, 1983

Hometown: Portland, OR

Career Highlights: 2011 European Athlete of the Year, Mo Farah is eyeing an historic double at the London Olympic Games. Pipped to gold in the 10,000 metres at last year’s World Championships, Farah responded by winning the 5,000 metres a week later, and Britain’s leading track and field athlete will fancy his chances of claiming both titles at his country’s home Olympics. Farah was born in war-torn Somalia and moved to the UK at the age of eight. A promising young athlete, Farah was given a lottery grant to take up the sport full-time and lived with some of Kenya’s leading distance runners during the first years of his career. Now based at the state-of-the-art distance running complex in Portland, Oregon in the United States, he has everything in place to be in peak condition for the biggest championship of his career. Farah failed to reach the 5000 metre final in Beijing, but has since developed into the leading athlete in the world over the distance, claiming world gold in Daegu to add to his European gold medals in both the 5000 and 10,000 metres at the European Championships in 2010. European record holder for the 10,000 metres and European indoor record holder for the 5000, Farah also holds the British 5000 metre record, the 10,000 metre road record, the 3000 metre indoor record and the nation’s half marathon record. Amongst the favourites for both distances at London, Farah’s strongest competition will come from Uganda’s Moses Kipsiro and the Ethiopian duo of Imane Merga and Tariku Bekele.

Olympic History: 2008