Mo Farah

Sir Mohamed "Mo" Muktar Jama Farah, born Hussein Abdi Kahin on 23 March 1983, is a British former long-distance runner of Somali origin. He won the 5,000 m and 10,000 m gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics and repeated the double at Rio 2016, becoming only the second athlete after Lasse Virén to win both titles at successive Games; with six World Championship titles he holds the record for the most global championship gold medals by a male track distance runner (four Olympic and six World titles) and is the most successful British track athlete in Olympic history. He was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to athletics and retired after his final competitive race, the Great North Run, on 10 September 2023. ¹

Hussein Abdi Kahin was born in the Somali Democratic Republic. The sources disagree on his birthplace: the Arabic article gives Mogadishu, Wikidata gives the Gabiley area, and the English article names no town, so the museum records no birthplace for him. He belongs to the Jibril Abokor subdivision of the Habr Awal clan of the Isaaq clan-family. His father died in the Somali unrest when he was four, and he was separated from his mother; after some years in Mogadishu, he and his twin Hassan were sent at the age of eight to live with an uncle in Djibouti. ^{1 2 3}

At the age of nine he was trafficked from Djibouti to London under the name of another child, Mohamed Farah, by a woman he had never met, and was forced to work as a domestic servant for her family and prevented from contacting his own. For his first years in Britain he was not allowed to go to school; at 11 or 12 he began Year 7 at Feltham Community College, where staff were told he was a refugee from Somalia, and his physical education teacher Alan Watkinson identified his athletic talent. Social services arranged for him to be fostered by another family, and his teacher later helped him apply for British citizenship, which he obtained in July 2000 under the name Mohamed Farah. He did not reveal any of this until July 2022; a barrister warned of a risk to his nationality, but the Home Office assured him he would face no repercussions. ¹

The Arabic article still carries the older account given before his revelation — that he came to Britain with his family in 1993, aged eight, seeking political asylum because of the civil war — and the difference is recorded in that source entity's reliability note; this article follows the English article's documented account of the revelation. ^{2 1}

His ambition at the time was to play as a right winger for Arsenal, or to become a car mechanic. He ran for the Newham and Essex Beagles athletics club and trained at St Mary's University College, Twickenham, from 2001 to 2011. ¹

His rise began with silver in the 5,000 m at the 2006 European Championships, followed by the European Cross Country title in December 2006. At the 2009 World Championships he finished seventh in the 5,000 m, the best by a European. At the 2011 World Championships he took silver in the 10,000 m and gold in the 5,000 m, beginning an unbroken streak of ten global final wins. ¹

London 2012 double

On 4 August 2012 he won the 10,000 m in 27:30.42 — Great Britain's first Olympic gold medal in the event — and on 11 August completed the long-distance double by winning the 5,000 m in 13:41.66, dedicating the two golds to his twin daughters. He stated that he would observe his Ramadan fast later in the year. The Arabic article likewise records his 2012 10,000 m victory in 27:30.42. ^{1 2}

The dominant years

In July 2013, at Monaco, he broke the European 1,500 m record with 3:28.81, becoming the only man in history to run under 3:30 for 1,500 m, under 13 minutes for 5,000 m and under 27 minutes for 10,000 m. He completed the distance double at the 2013 and 2015 World Championships and a double at the 2014 European Championships in Zürich, then repeated the Olympic double at Rio 2016 — his ninth global title, surpassing Kenenisa Bekele as the most frequent winner of gold in major long-distance events. At the 2017 World Championships he won his tenth global title in the 10,000 m, and in his final championship track race took silver in the 5,000 m behind Ethiopia's Muktar Edris, ending his winning streak. ¹

Roads, marathon and retirement

After 2017 he switched wholly to road racing and won the 2018 Chicago Marathon in 2:05:11, then a European record. He holds the world record for the one-hour run (21,330 m), the European record for 10,000 m (26:46.57) and the British records for 3,000 m and 5,000 m. He won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2017, the European Athlete of the Year award three times and the British Athletics Writers' Association award six times. ¹

This section sets out what the sources report. It is not a verdict by the museum.

The English article devotes a section to doping suspicion: two missed doping tests in earlier years, a Fancy Bears leak concerning his file, and the banning of his coach Alberto Salazar of the Nike Oregon Project, with whom Farah trained from 2011 to 2017. The sources record that Farah himself was not sanctioned, and that he cut ties with Salazar at the end of 2017 and returned to London. These matters are presented as the sources attribute them, with no finding by the museum. ¹

The English article describes him as a Muslim and an active supporter of the Muslim Writers Awards, for whom Islam is an important part of his preparation: "I normally pray before a race, I read dua [Islamic prayers or invocations], think about how hard I've worked and just go for it." He credits the Qur'an's teaching on hard work for his success, in his own account. An RISSC publication named him among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world in 2013. No source used here names a school for him, and none is recorded from public practice. ^{1 3}

He married Tania Nell in April 2010 in Richmond, London; they have twin daughters, Aisha and Amani (born August 2012), a son, Hussein (born 2015), and he has a stepdaughter, Rihanna. From 2011 to 2017 the family lived in Portland, Oregon, so that he could train full-time, before returning to London. In 2026 he and his family moved to Qatar; he stated: "I've always said that when I do retire, I want to... live in a Muslim country, enjoy myself, let my kids grow up knowing about the Deen, teach about the Deen, all that stuff." He is an Arsenal supporter, and his autobiography, Twin Ambitions, was published in October 2013. ¹

He launched the Mo Farah Foundation after a trip to Somalia in 2011; the following year he won £250,000 for it on ITV's The Cube, the only person to win the show's top prize. He took part in the 2012 Olympic hunger summit at 10 Downing Street, joined a 2013 campaign urging Barclays Bank to reverse its withdrawal from the UK remittance market — a market his own family transfers used — and with other celebrities urged action on corporate tax avoidance in poor countries. On 7 August 2017 he became a global ambassador for Marathon Kids. His social following was reported at roughly 1.5 million on Twitter, 1.1 million on Facebook and 1.1 million on Instagram, figures recorded here as the sources' dated figures, not museum facts. ¹

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• No Urdu Wikipedia article exists for him; this was checked via the Arabic article's language links.