Double Olympic champion says winning Sunday’s vote can cap another stellar year and make up for last year’s snub.
Monday, December 09, 2013
For a man who has won two Olympic gold medals, three world titles and been
hailed as one of the greatest
distance runners of all time, Mo Farah is
entitled to feel a little hard done by when it comes to the
BBC
Sports Personality of the Year award.
While few could argue with Sir Bradley Wiggins’s coronation last year after
his Tour de France and Olympic double, more controversial was the fact that
Farah’s epic 5,000 and 10,000 metres victories in the Olympic Stadium did
not even merit a top-three place in the eyes of the British public.
He finished fourth overall, with just eight per cent of the total vote. Not
even double figures for one of the greatest achievements in Britain’s
sporting history and a feat that put him on a pedestal alongside such track
greats as Emil Zatopek, Lasse Viren and Kenenisa Bekele.
Andy Murray, meanwhile, received a much healthier 14 per cent of the vote for
his Olympic US-Open double to take third place overall, while Jessica
Ennis-Hill finished runner-up with 23 per cent of the votes cast for her one
Olympic gold medal – nearly three times more votes than Farah.
One explanation for the apparent injustice is that the track and field vote
was split between Farah and Ennis-Hill, and the poster girl of London 2012
was never going to lose out in a straight popularity contest.
There is, however, another more troubling theory. Judging by the jibes that
continue to surface on website comment pages and across the social media
every time Farah chalks up another world-beating conquest, there are clearly
some who still struggle to accept him as truly British and who consider the
eight years he spent growing up in Somalia more defining than the 22 years
he has been a Londoner.
Farah insists that he never experiences any direct racism, but asked whether
he feels there is still some negativity towards him, he is in no doubt.
“Definitely, but you can’t change what people think,” he said. “For me,
personally, when I line up on the track, I’m proud to represent my country
with a Great Britain vest on. That’s my country and you just do the best you
can.
“I’ve been in Britain since I was eight years old. It’s where I grew up. But
maybe some other people in the world see it differently. It just is what it
is, really. It was one of those things [last year]. I did what I could and
obviously London isn’t going to come around again. But the best thing was
obviously winning two gold medals and having the home crowd. That was my
achievement and everything I got on top of that, like the CBE, was just a
bonus.
“There’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes you think, 'Yes it would have
been great to make the top three and get up there’, but it’s just what
happens. You’ve just got to respect that and get on with it.”
Having been installed as the bookies’ second favourite for this year’s awards,
how Farah’s share of the vote holds up after completing a historic
'double-double’ at the World Championships in Moscow this summer will be an
interesting sub-plot on Sunday, even if the main spotlight looks certain to
be shining on Murray for ending Britain’s 77-year wait for a men’s
Wimbledon singles champion.
Farah is sure the Scot will win the top award but is not losing any sleep
about it. He will not even be in Leeds for the ceremony as he is deep in
training at his base in Portland, Oregon, for his full London Marathon debut
next April, following this year’s trial run.
A win on the streets of London against the world’s top marathon runners would
certainly put him in contention for next year’s BBC award, and Farah admits
it is a prize he would not mind adding to his trophy collection one day.
“When I was young, it was such a huge thing,” he said. “I don’t think it’s
quite so big now, but at the same time it would still be great to win. If
you look down the list at the people who have won it before, it’s just
incredible. All those people are just legends. Some of them have achieved so
much, like David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Kelly Holmes and Paula Radcliffe.”
There are more important things on Farah’s mind right now, however, not least
the burden of coping with a training regime of 120 miles a week and learning
a new running technique aimed at cutting down on his bouncy, up-and-down
style and replacing it with a smoother, more energy-conserving one. The
amount of mileage is nothing new to him, though he does not normally reach
that level until January or February when preparing for the track season.
Hitting such a volume in early December is a different experience, though
needs must when you are faced with what could be one of the greatest
marathon fields ever assembled next spring. “That’s what it takes to do the
marathon,” he said. “You’ve just got to be really strong and keep working
through it.”
After a postseason break to complete his newly published autobiography, Twin
Ambitions, Farah has been immersed in training since October and will move
up another gear next month when he swaps Portland for Kenya’s Rift Valley
for a six to eight-week block of high-altitude training. He will then return
to sea level for a pre-London warm-up race, either over 10 miles or a
half-marathon, and then it will be back to the business of trying to win
trophies – not on a BBC stage but where it matters most for Farah.
“Winning stuff on the track or on the roads is what I train for,” he said.
“It’s like right now. You’re putting your body through so much, but you just
get the taste for winning and you appreciate it. That means a lot to me –
getting your reward by being who you are.”