Chariots of Farah

If you like underdog stories, you should stop what you're doing at 9.15 this evening, and support this man.


If you like British champions breaking new ground, you should support him.

If you have ever been frustrated by a generalisation about immigrants, asylum seekers, or kids who arrive in the English school system without being able to speak a word of English; if you were angered by the Daily Mail's insane claim that it would be "a challenge for the organisers [of the opening ceremony] to find an educated white middle-aged mother and black father living together with a happy family"; if you believe that nationality can be about more than the accident of birth, you need to watch Mo Farah race in the men's 10,000m tonight.

Born in Somalia in the mid eighties, Farah arrived in London in 1992 via Djibouti, granted residence by virtue of his father's joint English/Somali citizenship.  He was not, as has been reported, a refugee - that story belongs to Great Britain basketball captain Luol Deng, and is certainly worth reading, if you're looking for it.  He struggled at school in London, though, because of his lack of English.


"Kids would wind him up by getting him to try out English words that maybe he shouldn’t have been saying in lessons.  It was also a fairly combative school and, being Mo, he would never back down so he got himself into a couple of fights in his first year. So he did test the patience of one or two members of staff.” - Mo's best friend and best man gave an interview about the track star's early years in this country to the Telegraph last year.


Thanks to the observant eye and perseverance of his PE teacher at Felton Academy, he was persuaded to channel that competitive instinct into sport.  He wanted to become a footballer, but was coaxed into trying cross-country running and the fit was perfect.  Mo rose quickly through the ranks of schoolboy success to the verge of an international team, winning five national schoolboy championships against boys as many as five years older than him.  As his young career progressed, though, he struggled to make training sessions at his club in Windsor, but world champion Paula Radcliffe believed in his talent and paid for him to have driving lessons so that he could eventually get himself there.  Paula's own dream of competing in a home Olympics may have been derailed by injury, but her mentoring influence on Mo's young career means that her presence will be felt on the track after all.


Mo and his wife Tania are expecting twins this September.  She will be in the stadium tonight - Farah jokes that if his race triggers an early labour she would at least be in a stadium full of doctors.  Tania is well used to the impact of her husband's career.  Farah ran every day of their honeymoon in Zanzibar.


A recent song about Mo became a hit in Somalia, with the lyric "You are English, but we are proud to be a part of you. England is proud of you, and we are proud of you too”.  The games are partly about the joy of representing your country, but the real Olympic spirit goes beyond that.


In Sebastian Coe's address to the IOC in 2005, when he persuaded them to entrust their games to London, he promised that the most multicultural city in the would could offer home support to every athlete taking part.  This is the real joy of the London games, and there are no better symbols of this than Farah and Deng, While the basketball star is likely to find his chances of success limited by a struggling home tam, Mo Farah has a real chance to write his name into the record books and become the poster boy for a diverse, integrated Britain either this evening, or next weekend when he goes in the 5,000m.  Last year in Daegu he won that event to become the first British man ever to win a long-distance gold at a world championship.


If you can see why this story matters, why sport can change a life, why education can't exist without empathy, why Farah can be an example for a generation and a demographic that stretches far beyond the lucky few with athletic ability, then you should make sure you watch him run tonight.  And you should cheer him to the rooftops.