Mo Farah: Race of His Life

This programme contains some strong language

Go on, Farah. Go on.

Good lad. All the way. Go on, son.

This fellow's just won the English Schools cross-country championship.

-And what's your name?

-Mohamed Farah.

Mohamed Farah. Right, Mohamed. Don't be shy.

Say something. What's your ambitions?

-Olympics?

-Yeah.

10,000 metres.

Yeah, I can imagine it. Star of the future.

In 2012, the nation united

for one of the greatest sporting events in our history.

Mo Farah was at the centre of the London Olympic Games,

achieving the impossible.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Farah's going to make it

two gold medals for Great Britain.

Four years later, and Mo is aiming to make history by defending

both his gold medals and doing the double-double in Rio.

Can't have a day off. Can't afford it, cos Rio is round the corner.

With unprecedented access to his home life,

training regime and to the people who know him best,

this film follows Mo over the Olympic year

that will define his legacy.

Welcome back.

Through the miles of training

that take him back to the land of his parents,

through the pressures that training puts on his loved ones...

You never know when you're beat. You never want to lose.

Even I want to know how you tick.

..through the cloud of allegations that hang over his sport

and even question him.

If Alberto has crossed some line

and he's done something that he's not supposed to do, then I'm out.

And through the choices that will determine

whether Rio is a success or a failure.

I don't want to pull out of the race.

I'm not going to pull out of the race.

And crown Mo Farah as the greatest British Olympian of all time.

There we go. Gloves are there.

And then my numbers are here. What more do I need?

It's my first race of the season

so it's going to be a little bit of a test.

See where I am, just indication sort of how's training gone,

where am I at. My bald head.

There's still, like, eight months to the Olympics so, really,

you don't want to be peak at this race but yet you don't want to lose.

-ANNOUNCER:

-Come now to the start of the 2016

Great Edinburgh XCountry senior men's eight kilometres.

On the start line, are you ready? Race number one?

Returning to Edinburgh, double European, double world,

double Olympic champion for Great Britain and Northern Ireland,

Mo Farah!

STARTING GUN FIRES

Well, yeah,

it's almost...

Right now it is...

I'm going to check it. It's three o'clock.

Pretty late.

It's just after my race, Edinburgh race, XCountry.

Yesterday I came second.

You know, the night after a race, normally...

can't sleep, just can't sleep.

So many things going through your mind.

It's hard to be able to just forget about it.

You just don't click your fingers and forget about it.

Running is...

It's what you put in, you get out of.

No-one can take the blame apart from you.

No-one can take the blame on this.

It's just me being honest with you guys.

That moment...

I know I don't want to feel like this again.

I really don't want to feel it.

-FLIGHT ATTENDANT:

-Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to Flight 002 to Africa.

Flight time will be ten hours and 45 minutes,

cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet.

For the past six years,

Mo has spent his winters training at altitude in Africa,

and this is where his preparation for Rio really begins.

Over the next six weeks,

he'll run 20 miles a day at 10,000 feet

in temperatures exceeding 30 degrees.

We are here in Addis.

We're just about to do a session,

so before the session I'm going to have coffee.

This is just a local cafe.

And it is pretty strong, so you have it and you're like...

wide awake, so just to get me going.

He's doing well. I think he's better than he was last year.

The main thing is his body's good, he feels good, not got any problems.

That's the key thing right now.

Edinburgh was OK. It's where I was...

No-one wants to lose a race.

It was kind of like a little wake-up call to say,

"Look, you're not at the top yet so you need to do some work."

MUSIC: Can I Kick It? by A Tribe Called Quest

# Can I kick it? To all the people... #

The reason why I chose to train in Ethiopia

is it's 10,000 feet above sea level.

Altitude training is one of the key weapons in Mo's arsenal.

Reduced oxygen boosts his red blood cell count,

enabling a quicker recovery.

He actually enjoys the training, enjoys the running,

enjoys the application, the satisfaction,

he enjoys challenging himself.

He actually enjoys recording it and looking back at what he's done

and making comparisons and trying to work out whether he could have

done things better. And that's a huge, huge positive.

Why is it always windy, man?

Whenever I do a track session here, it just gets windy.

It's never, like, still.

And we are at 10,000 feet.

Can it get any more harder?

No. That's why we've got to do it.

I can't understand long-distance people.

They work so much and they run so much.

Even their warm-up day,

they run for just miles upon miles getting their legs warmed up

and I always ask them, how does that make any sense at the start?

How can you run the same distance you're about to run on the track?

You know what I mean? Just to warm up, to get your legs going.

Oh, tight, tight, tight.

Training camps are not just about high mileage,

but speed and stamina, too.

Under Barry's watchful eye, Mo is put through a speed session,

a key indicator of the progress he's making at altitude.

2.8, mate.

So a lap jog, guys.

Three seconds off the pace.

He's feeling it.

It's one of these days where you feel bollocks,

but you still need to do the work.

I haven't taken a single day off. Even the day I was ill, like,

I was ill in the morning

and then in the afternoon I went for a five-mile run.

Can't have a day off. Can't afford it, cos Rio is round the corner.

At every training session,

it's clear that Mo pushes himself harder than his training partners.

-No air, man.

-Huh?

-No air.

-I thought he wasn't going to go any quicker.

-What's that?

-I thought he wasn't going to go any quicker.

-This guy? Come on.

Whatever you say, Mo will do about a second quicker.

At least, yeah. For sure.

-That's what makes him good, though.

-Yeah.

Next stage. Bit quick, guys. Slow it down.

'He wants to do a little bit more

'because it proves to himself that he can,'

and it's just part of him.

You can't teach people that.

The downside of that is that his body's a bit older,

it takes a bit longer to recover.

He's pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing,

wants to be the greatest ever, and it's hard.

Doing the mileage he's doing, it's getting more difficult.

MO PANTS

Everyone is satisfied with Mo's performance,

but long, hard weeks are still ahead.

THEY EXCHANGE GREETINGS

When we finish our run all the time,

we try and get some juice or some coffee.

-The juice shack.

-Hello.

Can I get four avocado Vimto?

Long runs here are so much harder than they are at home.

Like, we can go out for 15, 20 miles, no sweat at home. Here...

You know, I'm crawling at 12 or 13.

I'm hitting nine and I'm like, "I'd love to stop right now."

Six years plus just going high altitude and stuff like that

so my body is kind of used to it, but it's something that must...

-Must be done.

-The thing that gets me

is how he can just come back every year the champion

and winning those medals, and hopefully he can win

another two this year in Rio. That would be great.

One for both his kids.

I know - I've got four kids, no pressure!

But that's what I mean, like, the twins has got one of each,

Rhianna hasn't got an Olympic medal, Hussein hasn't got an Olympic medal.

That's what drives me.

Well, it's early in the morning.

It's just gone six.

Going to get a little bit of food and then go training.

Today's a long run.

It's going to be one hard day.

Pretty tired today. I've just done an 18-mile-long run,

a run round the grass,

and it's pretty tough, but I guess, you know, you need to do this.

I've been here now almost five weeks in Ethiopia.

Things are getting tough, pretty hard.

Hi, you two.

Hi!

Oh, man, connection's bad.

The main struggle for me is, like, missing my four kids.

My oldest daughter, Rhianna,

my son has just turned four months now and my twins, girls,

they're kind of talking now,

asking questions, "Where are you? What are you doing?"

One of them says the other day, "Why does Daddy run?

"Can he not stop and come home?"

And I'm like, oh, man.

As a parent, it's hard to feel that.

One of them's been really struggling.

She hasn't been, like, eating as well.

Whenever I'm gone, she just stops eating.

That moment growing up, I can never get that back, no matter what.

It makes me feel sad, but the other hand is, you know,

my career is so short, I have to do what I can.

You only get one chance, one moment, and this is my moment, I believe.

Mo was born in Somalia,

but moved to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa when he was four years old.

Whilst he trains in Ethiopia,

he takes the chance to return to neighbouring Djibouti

to see his twin brother Hassan

and to revisit the family home where they grew up.

Punching me for no reason.

He's trying to get my attention so he punches me.

That's what brothers do, right?

I've been getting that all my life, and now I'm going to get it again?

No chance.

We used to, like, come here and sell samosas and stuff like that.

HASSAN SPEAKS HIS OWN LANGUAGE

We used to play football there.

We used to come here and swim, like, in the afternoon and that.

All this is open, and we used to come every Friday.

As a child, you know, age of eight, this is the memories

that I have from Djibouti when I left the country when I was a kid,

and this is the street that I used to run around,

play football and do other stuff.

CHILDREN CHEER AND SHOUT

I am nervous but, yeah, it's quite exciting, too,

seeing kids and just knowing where you grew up.

It's the first time Mo has been back in six years.

HE GREETS PEOPLE

It feels weird, actually, cos I look at it now...

When I was a kid, I imagined I lived in this massive house,

everything for me was like big, huge,

and then you come back...

..and it's tiny, it's like small-small.

To me at the time, it was two big bedrooms,

one big one, and then the other one

where everybody used to just sleep on the floor.

There might be like seven of us, eight of us in one room.

Ismail is one of my best friends.

He was the one that used to go to school, study hard.

But us, we used to just play all the time.

CHEERING AND CLAPPING

Like, you see all these people, all these kids,

and I was just one of them kids.

I don't think what would happen if I'd stayed here.

I don't know what I would have done.

Yeah.

Whilst Mo and Hassan lived here with their mother,

their father worked away in London, visiting at every opportunity.

In 1994, after years of planning,

the family finally joined his father in London.

But Hassan did not travel with them.

They have never spoken about this before.

MO SIGHS

When I started school back in year six, my English was so bad.

My cousin was going to the same school at the time

so I was kind of relying on him a lot.

He used to translate and teach me a few words.

Please, thank you. Just, you know, simple things.

Toilet.

I remember, like, the hardest kid in school,

he used to just rule the school and everybody used to be scared of him

and then we were playing football one day, he kicked the ball away.

Just like, "What are you going to do?"

And I was like, I didn't know the word,

all I knew was, "Come on, then," so I said, "Come on, then."

Boom, punched me right in the eye, gave me a black eye.

When I first got to know Mo, there wasn't an awful lot of talking.

We were just acquainted at school, we'd see each other round school

and say hi and the usual sort of, the small talk,

not really a proper conversation.

so I didn't realise how broken his English was initially

because he was always saying hi,

and then it wasn't until I got to know him a bit better

at the local running track after school,

and that's when I realised that his English wasn't so great.

I couldn't describe what I felt.

If you're upset or if you're happy,

it was harder to describe what you're going through.

I was good at sports and I think that's one of the things

that really helped me.

I was always representing the school, the county,

and I was always in newspapers and stuff so I managed to

make friends and get into sports and I think that helped me out a lot.

I knew he had the talent, cos at school,

I just remember him winning for fun.

This one cross-country, they all ran through the woods, the forest,

and they all had to come out the other end.

Mo appeared out of the wood first like this hero.

He was the first one that comes running out

and then it felt like forever until the second person came out.

It was like... "Has he gone the wrong way?

"Is he on the wrong course here?"

But there was just silence, and then you see the second guy come,

and then about five seconds later,

the rest of them come bolting through the woods.

He ran the English school cross-country at the age of 13.

So from 1996 to 2008, he was training,

running well, winning races, losing races.

So that apprenticeship that Mo Farah served

was what made Mo Farah into the great athlete that he is these days.

The International Olympic Committee has the honour of announcing...

I was competing for my club.

And then we stopped at a petrol station,

I stopped to listen to the news.

-..City of London.

-CHEERING

It's every athlete's dream to compete at the Olympics.

Not just at the Olympics, but it's going to be in your home town,

it's going to be in London.

I remember talking about it, "It's going to be big."

And then five years later, I'm competing at the Olympics.

Just walking in and seeing the whole stadium...

So you come through this entrance

and then you walk along there

and it's just like the start line's there.

I never knew the crowd could get any louder

than actually when he came out and they were like, "Oh, Mo Farah!"

It actually sounds louder than when I came out, you know what I mean?

So many Union Jack flags everywhere,

so many people just cheering for you

and at that point I was just thinking, "This is it."

CHEERING

The noise.

You can't even explain what that noise was like in the stadium

on both those nights.

STARTING GUN FIRES

-COMMENTATOR:

-And the crowd all erupt.

So many guys in the field,

so just chill out, try and save as much energy because, you know,

I'm stronger towards the end of a race.

I had a doctor tell me in June, one of the check-ups I went to,

that I was imminently going into labour

and that I just need to go home and wait for it.

I just took the decision to deal with it on my own.

And I called his manager I said,

"Look, there's a chance I might go into labour during the Olympics.

"Just do me a favour and cover me

"and just make sure that he doesn't find out

"and that we keep the game going that, you know,

"I'm cool and everything's normal."

-COMMENTATOR:

-Locked together.

The pressure on me was ridiculous.

These people want me to do well, they're here for me.

Let's go. Let's go.

Hang on! Hang on!

Stay strong, stay focused.

I'm making my country proud.

I'm making history. It can't get better than that.

The arms have got to pump, the knees have got to come up high.

He's got to find something extra.

-He's got to kick hard.

-Just hold it. Don't let anyone pass me.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Mo Farah takes gold for Great Britain.

Going to make it two gold medals for Great Britain!

Beautiful!

Yes! Yes!

Just chaos.

Just...

I couldn't really gather my thoughts properly because I felt like

we were just right in the middle of this madness.

I remember seeing Tania and Rhianna.

"I did it, I did it, I did it."

And, you know, hugging them.

Hugging them.

You forget how many people are watching, cos you're there.

You genuinely forget that it's centre court of the world

and so when it all happened,

I forgot where we were and I was just thinking about Mo

and I was just like, "You did it."

Like, I was in a bubble for the next ten minutes.

It was just so...

out of this world, almost.

Four years later now, we are trying to win another two gold medals

and all them years, it's like, what's kept me going,

what makes me keep fighting and keep coming out year after year

is the feeling, that emotion,

you know, you get, what I got from this track.

I like to shave my hair before my race

just to feel nice and light and feel smooth.

Something I've always done. It's become like a superstition.

It never was, because I used to have hair,

but over the last kind of ten years

I've been sort of just doing the same thing and sticking to it.

-COMMENTATOR:

-They're not allowing Farah to control this.

Blankenship giving this a real good run.

This is a brilliant performance from the American as well.

And there goes Farah.

He's got to keep working here, but he's got this one now.

Mo Farah stretching away.

It won't be a record this time, but it is a win.

His first of 2016.

Let's hope it's not the last.

Just after the race,

just been spiked. I was working hard out there.

I had to make a split decision

whether I want to win the race or run a fast time.

The most important thing was trying to win the race, which I did.

I'm back in Scotland.

Last time I was second, this time I'm first.

Which I'm really happy about that.

Yes!

What more can you say?

My leg's... No, don't amputate it.

-Just sort me out, Doc.

-Take it off.

Look out for Daddy. When we see him,

you're going to run up to him and give him a big hug and kiss, OK?

-I see him.

-You think you see him?

There's Daddy.

Daddy!

Three years before his success at London 2012,

Mo moved his family to Portland,

a centre of excellence for endurance running.

Hey, baba. Hey, baba.

Daddy. Daddy.

-BARRY:

-The thing that comes across with Mo, he wants to win,

and Mo was successful as a junior

but not as successful as others would have been.

I think it was always there

but he didn't necessarily know how to do it,

and I think he had an opportunity around 2009, 2010 to make a change

and he basically done what he thought was the right thing

to win medals.

He just needed to move into a professional training environment

which was all about Mo Farah.

I'd seen Mo come through the junior ranks.

I'd seen him run extremely well, but I had seen limitations.

He was always going to fall short at the very highest level.

And he found in Alberto

a world-class coach and somebody that could structure his programme.

All right, so you average 4.37.5.

Alberto Salazar is considered to be one of the greatest

endurance-running coaches of all time.

The Oregon Project that he established 15 years ago

revolutionised the way athletes compete.

I started training back in 2010 with Alberto.

Alberto is known as a crazy coach.

The first guy to ever come up with high-altitude training.

He was the first guy to challenge the Ethiopians and the Kenyans,

to say, what makes this guy so good?

What do we need to do that they're doing?

The Oregon Project, there's this thing that surrounds them,

that people think they're doing all sorts of stuff, but no different

than any professional team in the world is doing.

It's science and medicine and technology.

Like altitude tents.

It's a technological aid that's providing red cells.

And then you've got things like caffeine

that we know is a stimulant.

It's nothing that's morally wrong, nothing that's banned.

Because we're up against the best people in the world,

some of which have been cheating in the past, we know.

That's the business we're in.

And for me, it worked.

The training I did has changed me 1% or 2%.

That's all I needed to win medals.

Good morning. Are you ready to come down?

-Uh-oh.

-Oh, man.

It's a big one, isn't it?

It's quite a big, brave thing to do,

which is to up sticks and take a flight across eight time zones

and base yourself somewhere entirely alien.

I mean, he was so determined to succeed

and to tap every ounce of the natural talent

that he so clearly had.

-Aaah!

-Aaaah-rsenal.

-What do you say?

-Aaaa-rsenal.

-Yeah!

Despite making Portland his family home,

his training and away schedule mean

he's away from his wife and four children six months of every year.

-You just eating that?

-The baby was in a bassinet next to the bed

and he was stirring at around 5:30 in the morning.

I was rocking him

and I went to kind of lean back

and then something moved next to me and I freaked out.

My heart just jumped.

And it was Mo, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, he's back."

SHE LAUGHS

Is that better? Daddy did a good job?

It's not an easy job for Mo just to go away for training.

It's a lot. I mean, it's a big sacrifice, I'm telling you.

-Daddy, where are we going?

-We're going to school, baba.

It was a decision we both made together.

In fact, I encouraged it because we had to make a decision like this

for Mo to benefit, really, with his running at that time.

OK, I'm going to pick you up later, OK?

-Have fun.

-Have fun, you two, OK?

Gave me a kiss.

Training impinges on every aspect of home life, even sleep.

Mo's bedroom features an altitude tent to replicate the oxygen levels

he experiences at altitude.

This is what it takes to be a champion, you know what I mean?

It's more comfortable just sleeping in a normal bed, but I don't.

It's a pain in the butt.

Sometimes he'll be like, "Night," and lift up the tent

and we'll give each other a kiss and he'll put it back down again.

Or sometimes we'll kiss through the tent.

Sometimes I'll be here and I'll be like...

"Goodnight, babe. I can't come out."

Or occasionally I just kind of lift up...

Yeah, God, I forget about stuff like that.

I'm just here at Rhianna's swimming club.

This is where she swims and practises five times a week.

I tried to push her into running.

She didn't like it. She just didn't enjoy it.

He went off to sixth form after school

so that's when we started seeing less of each other.

There was a couple of years where we just didn't have any contact really,

I think, and that was when I had Rhianna

and I was working full-time

so I was just totally immersed in being there for Rhianna,

supporting Rhianna, just supporting myself.

So I grew up a lot in that couple of years.

When I met Rhianna, she was three years old.

She was a baby, and I've seen her, you know, grow up.

Now she's 11, so she's part of me.

She's pretty good at swimming, too.

She's naturally strong.

But it's just, you know, one of those things.

You could be good, have the talent, but how far can you push along?

Some people I remember that I used to compete against

had more talent than me, but, you know, they didn't train

and they didn't make that crucial decision.

-I'm on fire.

-Concentrate, and stop talking.

-He told us to go to the bathroom.

-Listen, listen.

You need to stop talking and start working.

In June 2015,

with his sport already suffering from a series of doping allegations,

a bombshell hit the Farah household.

This is a slightly unusual press conference

in that it has been convened specially in response to

the Panorama programme that appeared earlier this week.

The nature of this programme

was that there were a number of allegations made

against Alberto Salazar and Galen Rupp.

There were no allegations made against Mo Farah

and that point was made throughout the programme.

Question is answered.

As an athlete, I don't want people to think Mo's on something,

because I'm not.

I'm a clean athlete, I'm against drugs, 100%,

and I believe anyone caught with drugs should be banned for life.

We had media turn up outside our house,

and one particular reporter felt the need

to ring the doorbell in the morning and start asking me questions,

and was harassing us, and it was just awful

because you just don't want the kids to see any of that.

We felt violated and just so disappointed

that your safe haven where you want to be normal,

you suddenly are made to feel very different, and a target.

I'm really angry at this situation.

It's not fair, it's not right.

Yet I haven't done anything,

but my name's getting dragged through the mud.

It's something not in my control, but I want to know answers.

I need to know what's going on, what's what.

It sucks. It really does.

You know, we take a lot of comfort and we sleep well at night knowing

that it's all down to graft and we, as a family,

fully deserve everything that has come our way.

My reputation's getting ruined.

You guys, just...

You're killing me. It's like, what have I done?

Mo made his blood results available to demonstrate his innocence,

but his association with Salazar continued to cast a shadow.

I couldn't believe what was happening.

You do the tests, you do everything right,

but yet something that's not in your control...

Any athlete, no matter who you are,

you don't want to be associated with

someone who is doing something or someone who's crossed a line.

I've said always along that, if Alberto has crossed a line

and he's done something that he's not supposed to do

and IAAF or Wada or everyone tells us that,

"Look, Alberto, you crossed the line,

"this is the rules, this is what you did," then I'm out.

But he actually never has crossed any lines

and we're still waiting till this day to come out,

the IAAF and Wada, to tell us what he actually done.

After analysing Mo's performance data, British Athletics cleared Mo

to continue to work with Alberto Salazar.

The World Anti-Doping Authority

have yet to release the findings of their investigation.

It's nine days until Mo will compete in Cardiff in the half marathon.

The meeting is critical, as it's the only time

he will race his main competitors before Rio.

Yes, why don't you just jog, jog an 800?

We don't need to wear spikes, obviously.

10.2. Good.

I don't believe in changing things too much.

If something's been working, you try and keep doing it.

And we're always trying to fine-tune things

and get a little better. I work very closely with UK Athletics,

with Barry Fudge and Neil Black. They have all Mo's workouts,

everything he's done since he's been with me,

so we constantly are always looking at those together as a team

and the hope in the next month is, of course, to run well

in the World Half Marathon Championships

and the goal is to be ready in August

so the emphasis will be on Rio.

Mo, are you feeling anything today? Like a stitch?

I don't know, I'm just getting cramps.

I've got a cramp. Why's that?

-A stitch?

-Not a stitch, it's just like...

I can't decide whether I need to shit or throw up.

Yeah. It feels like...

Yeah, you should just take some antacid when you get home.

Fuck me. Eurgh.

The session is abandoned, but Mo is determined to continue training

and switches to low-impact running on the underwater treadmill.

Even the water's making my stomach go cramp up.

Eight days before the race now in Cardiff.

Going to try and run.

I've just been on the phone to the coach and stuff.

If I can't do the session

then he thinks I should pull out of the race, which is...

for me, it's pretty hard. I don't want to pull out the race.

I'm not going to pull out the race. Can't do it.

It's what you train for. It's what I train for.

All year round. Six weeks in Ethiopia wasn't easy.

All that mileage, come back home and do it,

still doing it right and, you know, doing every day training.

59.27.

It's scary.

That was tough. Just done a ten-mile in 59 minutes.

Scary, Daddy.

Man, when you're not feeling well, it's a lot more harder

than what it's supposed to be.

Sweating a lot more than normal.

But, you know, it's got to be done, so what can you do?

Just not as well, so...

But, you know, I have to train.

I can't afford to have a day's rest where, you, you just sit on your...

Sit on your backside and think the world's going to get better.

Or, you know, you're going to win races.

Hey, Aishy.

-How's Daddy running? Was Daddy running fast?

-Yeah.

The reality is when Mo sits back at the end of Rio

and if he doesn't win and he hasn't worked his socks off,

he will look back and go, "Why didn't I just kill myself?

"I might have won this."

So that's the thing that will be driving him forward all the time,

that will be pushing him towards that line every single day.

In athletics, the world's best rarely race each other

outside of the major championships.

A victory here will give Mo a distinct psychological advantage,

but with his recent training disrupted, it's a huge gamble.

Defeat will hand his rivals an advantage in Rio.

-ANNOUNCER:

-The half marathon. Five times the world champion,

twice the Olympic champion, the team captain for Great Britain, Mo Farah!

CHEERING

STARTING GUN FIRES

This is the battle for bronze.

This has been a moment that Geoffrey Kamworor...

And look at Mo Farah.

Ayele is hanging on.

Mo Farah gets the bronze.

Third place. Mo's gamble has not paid off.

Just straight through to the white tent, boys. Well done.

Go ahead, boys.

-Are you light-headed or are you all right?

-No, I just feel dizzy.

He's the target now, so

the expectation is there before the race so you know what to expect.

It could go either way in that there are very much two extreme feelings

you would feel after a race, almost. It's all or nothing for Mo.

What I think about is how he's going to feel at the end of a race.

I'm disappointed. I've got a lot of work to do.

I've got a lot of work to do in terms of, you know, just...

..waking up a bit, and I think, in a way,

this just wakes me up and it makes me even more hungry.

Sometimes as a champion when you just keep winning and winning,

maybe you're not as hungry and, in a way, today,

even though, like, I know training hasn't gone smooth,

deep down I've just thought, you know, I can turn up

and do as well as I want and beat these guys.

Bronze medal in the World Championship.

I've gone... Years ago, I would have gone,

"Oh, yeah, that's brilliant," but not any more, man. Not any more.

Ups and downs are only natural in track and field.

It's how you deal with it, how you bounce back,

and I think he's been through it all over the years,

so I think he understands and knows what he needs to do to recover,

to bounce back.

After failure in Cardiff,

Mo reacts by heading straight to an altitude-training camp in Arizona

and decides to push himself harder than ever before.

We've been delaying this run.

Every evening run just...

-Gets harder.

-Yeah.

See you later.

Historically, Mo's biggest problem has been over-training.

Now aged 33, it's more precarious than ever.

This is becoming an increasing concern for his team.

I don't think I've come across anyone

who is more stubborn with something that he feels

strongly about.

Possibly he even knows that it's not the best thing to do,

but he has to do it, because the easy option is do more,

the easy option is to push harder

to give yourself that kind of confirmation of how amazing you are.

When sometimes the answer is to back off and just believe in yourself.

Sometimes it's hard to explain to people

what you do week in, week out.

And what it takes to be Olympic champion.

You know what I mean? You don't just...

You don't just get up and, like, and become Olympic champion.

It takes years of preparation and some people don't have a clue

so...

Some days you just want to get up and cry.

I swear that.

I get out my bed and I'm like, "Am I going to do it today?"

But somehow, some way, you just end up getting through it,

getting through it, not complaining about it.

I'm not complaining. I love what I do.

But there is days that I get up and I'm like,

"How am I going to do it today? How is my body going to cope?"

-Bang!

-Oh!

Whoo!

Whoever loses buys dinner tonight.

So here, we just moved in to our new pad.

The boy's cooking. What have we got tonight?

-Spag bol!

-Spag bol!

Every single person has cooked apart from Matt.

Guy's first time ever in a kitchen

and he wants everyone in the whole house to be here.

Come and see my room.

I should probably...

There's another sock there.

If Tania saw my room, she'd be like, "This place is a mess!"

When I'm at home, I never do any washing, I never do anything.

So far, I've gone from four pairs of shoes...

How many weeks I've been here? One, two, three, four,

it's my fifth week.

And they're pretty much... They're gone.

Five weeks at altitude is starting to take its toll...

..but Mo is not letting up.

I've got a big session. Just me against the track, innit?

Should be quite exciting.

OK, let's go.

The last five weeks,

I've put my body through hell

so it would be nice to get some kind of reward.

MUSIC: Club Foot by Kasabian

Oh, man.

Bang it out.

That's seven done.

He's banked five weeks of 120 miles.

It's going to make him pretty tired. All that fatigue's got to come out

in the next week in order for him to run well.

We don't want him to be too good too soon.

At the same time, he wants to go out next week and kill everyone.

He wants to go out and run something silly.

Nobody even turns up to the Olympics thinking they're going to win.

That's what he's got on his mind.

MO PANTS

Despite a successful session, there are concerns he is fatigued.

Good day at the office?

Yeah. Got to be done.

Oh, man.

It was... It was hard, but it's just like one of these things.

What are you going to do? Are you going to think about it and go,

"Oh, shit, I've got ten to go,"

when you've done only a couple of them, and think,

make it harder for yourself?

Or are you going to go, "Well, has to be done,

"you do it now or you come back again and do it next day"?

Yeah, it's that adrenaline, isn't it?

It's like I'm buzzing now. Mad Mo.

Mo is in Eugene, Oregon, for the iconic Prefontaine 10k.

It's his only 10,000-metre race ahead of Rio.

All eyes will be on the race and Mo's performance.

-Look at me!

-And then she hangs upside down.

I didn't know what to expect.

SHE SINGS

AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM PLAYS

-ANNOUNCER:

-The Prefontaine Classic.

Tonight is distance running at Hayward Field.

This is the feeling you get. You're hot.

This is what we've been training for.

10k, let's go! 10k runners!

Let's go!

Come on, Dad!

Barry Fudge initiated the phrase of "own the start line".

There's absolutely no doubt, you know, since 2011,

Mo has owned the start line, owned the track, owned the event.

CHEERING

STARTING GUN FIRES

Come on! Go, Dad!

-TANIA:

-There's a lot more riding on his races.

Before, he was always seen as a bit of an underdog.

It wasn't like now where

he's expected to beat everybody and if he comes second, it's a big deal.

Dad!

So now the feeling I get is just... I feel pressure.

Just pressure, mostly, I think, when I watch him run.

I just want it to be over.

Everybody has that inner demon, that voice inside them saying,

"You might not be as good. Somebody might be better."

-COMMENTATOR:

-Farah just checks if there's any other danger,

but that's not where the danger is. It's ahead of him now.

Mo Farah kicks again. The Kenyan gives it up, looks behind.

CHEERING DROWNS COMMENTARY

Mo Farah wins the Pre Classic 10,000 metres.

26.53.

-Happy?

-No.

-Why not?

-It was all right. I wanted to run faster but it just...

You got the win. You got the win. That's all that matters.

That was scary. I thought he had it in the bag about halfway through

and then he started to look tired with about ten laps to go.

I'm not used to seeing that, so I was a bit nervous.

And also, usually once he goes at the bell, that's it,

no-one overtakes him, but with 200 to go,

the other bloke went in front of him again, but he dug in.

So hard to watch. So hard to watch.

What's she doing?

She just took all the sand and dumped it on her head.

Oh, my goodness.

Although Mo has won the race,

the nature of his victory is uncharacteristic.

The concerns regarding over-training are mounting.

You've been training so hard and pushing.

You need a good two weeks before you're going to run.

I mean, last week, you ran, what, 120?

-120, yeah.

-Man.

-I just felt like...

Yeah, your legs are dead.

In the end, it's going to come down to

is he willing to back off and do a little bit less at times,

to not push quite so hard all the time?

He's never going to sit there and think, "I've got this."

No, it's fascinating, isn't it?

Even he doesn't think...

-Never.

-It's still like...

"I wonder if..."

You've surprised me a million times,

running really fast when I didn't think you were going to.

But this time, this is the first time

you've ever trained this hard, this close.

-Yeah.

-That's the difference.

-OK. Say goodnight, everybody.

-Goodnight, everybody.

All right. Lie down.

Mo listens to his coaching team

and takes a week off training.

Tuck it right in.

I know you can't.

And strike, boom!

MUSIC: The Man In Me by Bob Dylan

Oh!

Oh!

How many games are we playing?

As many as it takes to humiliate you.

Oh! Oh!

He got two strikes!

I missed that. You could still catch me.

If you nailed all three of your last goes, you could do it.

Oh, my God.

Oh, one more point!

What?!

This is what I mean! This is the shit I'm talking about.

-No!

-All I need to do...

This is probably the best score I have ever had.

Oh!

SHE LAUGHS

All right, I'm going to just sit here and enjoy my chicken wings now.

It's such an adjustment having Mo back after being away for so long.

Suddenly everything stops,

like literally everything stops,

but in a good way, and it's like I don't know what to do with myself.

And then the same when you leave again.

It's just the adjustment.

It's hard for you too, but you just have a different challenge.

When you're training, does it ever cross your mind

that what if at the end of this, I don't even do half as good?

-Does that ever cross your mind?

-Of course it does.

That you might not win? You never know when you're beat.

You never want to lose. You never want to hang it up.

-Never want to lose anything.

-You just want to keep going.

So I just... Every year I just get more surprised.

I think I know you, and you surprise me again.

And you keep doing it, so at what point...?

I'm just curious sometimes. I want to know like, what...

Even I want to know...

..how you tick.

Nine days after Eugene, Mo is returning to Birmingham,

the event he withdrew from last year after the allegations

surrounding his coach Alberto Salazar surfaced.

I'm going to bless these bad boys.

Let's kick some butt.

The nerves are really kicking in.

Dropping everything, shaking.

-JOURNALIST:

-Two months to go to Rio - how are you feeling overall

about your preparations for the Olympic Games?

It's not long to go to Rio at all.

Last week, I raced in the 10,000.

I did good, I did OK. I wanted to actually run a little bit faster

than what I did, but it was OK. It's where it's at.

So are you going to go for Dave Moorcroft's record?

Conditions is good, so I'll see how it goes.

Yeah, I'm really excited to be here in Birmingham.

I was supposed to race last year. It didn't quite happen.

All the stuff was kicking off about Alberto and I wanted questions,

I wanted answers so I got on a flight back because I was just like,

my head was just messed up.

I just wasn't... Wasn't ready.

I didn't know what to do.

Have I taken anything?

No. Have I crossed a line?

No. It wasn't me, you know?

It's not good to blame people, but it just felt like...

..I couldn't answer anything that was going on.

At the end of the day, you've just got to keep going for

what you're going for and there's going to be things

that are out of your control sometimes but...

that's all part of the process.

Hopefully heading for a quick time.

A big 10,000 metres in Eugene last week.

It's just a question of if that 10,000 took a lot out of him.

Mo Farah means this. He's picking it up here.

Oh! He's done it!

7.32.62.

It's a British record by a tenth of a second.

-How are you doing?

-Well done.

-See you later.

-All right.

Mo holds all the British records from 1,500 metres,

3,000 metres, 5,000, 10,000 metres.

But when he broke the 1,500 metres record, everyone in athletics went,

"Wow, my God, look how good..."

Because that was Steve Cram's record

and when Steve did it, it was the world record.

What is the plans between now and Rio?

Training's been going pretty well so believe in myself

and, you know, what I'm trying to do

is something that's never been done before.

-Well done.

-All right, man?

'In London, there wasn't the same level of expectation

-'that there is now.'

-It was hard.

'In 2012, it was getting a guy to the level where he could compete

'and win those medals.'

Now it's keeping him at that level and dealing with the expectation

that he has to deal with every day. It's quite big.

So there's not many people out there that don't expect him

to win two gold medals this summer,

apart from a couple of Ethiopians and Kenyans.

It's the last race of the season before the Olympics.

The London Anniversary Games,

Mo's last chance to see how his training has gone

before the final countdown to Rio begins.

All shaved up, all ready to go.

I feel all right. I worked hard for this so, just, you know,

it's another test and I just get nervous talking about London

cos I just feel...

The Olympic Games was in my hometown and life has changed since then

and this track is pretty amazing.

Since January, it's been a pretty long journey.

But things have turned around quite a lot and I'm happy where I am.

Coming back from, you know, Eugene was good

and then coming back in Birmingham,

I broke the British record,

so it's just one last hurdle where I've got to get through this race,

win the race hopefully, see what I can do,

and then...

God, Rio. Rio in a few weeks' time.

Man.

It's nerve-racking.

There's more expectation, there's more pressure.

He's going in as a double Olympic champion

and a five-time world champion.

He's never gone into any championship with that pressure.

It's so hard staying at the top and I know what goes into it

and I know that he's a target,

and he's just able to maintain that like an animal, almost.

He's just guarding that top spot and no-one's coming near it.

CHEERING

I've run so many miles. I've done, week-in, week-out, 120 miles.

I've done everything that I CAN do. I don't think I can do any more.

He is unquestionably one of the very best.

You've got a whole generation of young people

that are looking at athletics, looking at Mo Farah and thinking,

"Actually, distance running is quite cool."

He's working hard, he's going extremely fast

but this is not a last-lap sprint, this is an endurance run.

It's all about getting your name in the history books

and making people remember you for the work you've done.

But he's going to be remembered as one of the best in the sport.

I'm proud of him. Just amazing, you know.

And he's doing, you know, just what I didn't do.

I had my own time and he's had his own time.

You know, this is Mo's time.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Watching the clock, Mo Farah coming to the line.

He's going to win the 5,000 metres and it's in under 13 minutes.

His arms go in the air.

A world-leading time over the 5,000 metres.

Amazing, amazing. It's what I wanted to do all season, you know?

I just had to taper well and it was good, it was good.

I did what I needed to do, so Rio now.

Rio's on.