British distance running legend Mohamed Farah aka Mo Farah won the 10,000m in 27 minutes and 12 seconds, 2mins 34secs clear of Kenya’s Mathew Kimeli at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava.
Farah’s time was only four seconds off the world-leading time over 10,000m this year, held by Abadi Hadis of Ethiopia.
The four-time Olympic champion will not compete over the distance again until he bids to defend his title at the World Championships.
The 34-year-old’s time in Ostrava was well down on the 27:01 he managed to win the world title with in Beijing in 2015, but Kimeli was his only challenger with 10 laps remaining before Farah broke clear for a comfortable victory.
Earlier, Farah said he was looking forward to performing in front of home fans in the British capital for the worlds, with the longer aim to return to London from his Oregon training camp.
“It’s better to end it on a high. If London goes as well as I want and everything goes perfect, you won’t see me on the track, you might see me do some crazy events, but in terms of 5000 and 10,000 I’ll call it a day,” Farah said.
The Somaliland-born runner, who spent his early years in Djibouti before moving to Britain at the age of eight, said that a decision to take part in the marathon at Tokyo 2020 Olympics was not the most pressing item on his agenda.
“It’s really different training for marathon than the track,” he said.
“When I finish track I’d like to be able to sit back a bit, do a few marathons to get used to it and then after that make a decision.
Then comes an outing at the London Diamond League over 3000m, followed by a training camp in southern France to fine-tune preparations for the August 4-13 World Athletics Championships in the British capital.
It is no exaggeration to say Farah has successfully overcome Kenyan and Ethiopian team tactics to dominate the 5000 and 10,000m as he did last night at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava.
Since winning silver over 10k at the 2011 world champs in Daegu, the 34-year-old Londoner has enjoyed an unbroken streak of nine global final wins (the 5000m in 2011, and the double at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics and the 2013 and 2015 worlds).
Source: Agencies
