The list of Britain’s European 5000 metres champions is not long, but it is illustrious: Sydney Wooderson, Bruce Tulloh, Ian Stewart, Brendan Foster, Jack Buckner.

The list of those Britons who have won both the European 5000 and 10,000 is even less long. It comprises one name: Mo Farah.

It is also illustrious.

Farah, already in the happy position of being the first Briton to win the European 10,000m title, has now managed an achievement that is both historic and hugely popular.

There will be those who tut-tutted at the way the Somali-born athlete slowed and gestured to the Spanish champion Ayad Lamdessem to take the lead in the 10,000m after the two men had broken away from the rest of the field with three laps to go.

Farah didn’t want to lead, but to follow; and to choose his moment to strike. It was a calculated action which he would probably not have had the confidence to take four years ago, when another Spaniard, the convincingly named Jesus Espana, beat him to the European 5.000m title by just 0.09sec.

But the naturalised Briton managed to achieve the desired switch with charm, smiling that dazzling smile of his until the poor home runner could no longer resist his mischievous invitation.

Of course, those actions would have had the effect of making the Spaniards in the 5.000m final all the more determined to tip back Farah’s ambitions.

However, after he discovered an apparent extra chamber of energy over the final 200 metres, no one was able to prevent the Briton from becoming only the fifth man to complete a European 5000/10,000m double - not even his nemesis from 2006, Espana, who congratulated his emotionally stricken opponent at the finish line after finishing in silver medal position.

Viva Farah!

Like so many others, I have looked forward to the time when this amiable young man would have the reward his talent and increasing dedication deserved. Now his moment has finally arrived, and he is looking forward to next year’s World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and the small gathering in London a year after that, with rising ambition.

Farah is finally arriving at the position that was being forecast for him a decade ago when, as a hugely promising 16-year-old, he started to produce performances that made him stand out.

I first spoke to him in unpromising circumstances early in 2000 - nearly seven years after he had arrived in England as a refugee from a war-torn Somalia to join his father, who was already living in the country. Young Mo was waiting at a bus-stop with his school mates, and as I strained to hear his quiet voice the task suddenly became more vexed as a bus arrived and everybody piled on.

Against a background of noise which made it seem as if his fellow pupils were systematically destroying their means of transport, Farah recalled how his knowledge of the English language was so limited when he arrived in Hounslow from Mogadishu that he got into a fight on his first day at school.

He also remembered how, during his first cross-country race for the Borough of Hounslow club, he had lost the chance of winning when he took a wrong turning, baffled by the signs on the course.

But that talented, if confused young athlete has now very definitely found his way – and cross-country has been his means of reaching the position in which he now finds himself.

In December 2006, I saw him earn his first significant gold after six consecutive silver medals as he took the European Cross-Country title at San Giorgio su Legnano.



Earlier that year he had had a reward for throwing in his lot with the Kenyan athletes who used Teddington as their European training base when he produced the second fastest 5,000m time by a Briton, 13min 09.40sec.

Clearly, when he took to the course in Italy he was in a position to win. And, like Paula Radcliffe, who gave him a pep-talk on the eve of the last European 5,000m final, he has followed up a breakthrough on the grass with one on the track. 

Had circumstances been different, Farah might have been giving the Netherlands cause for celebration this week. When he emigrated in 1993, the original plan was for him to come to Britain and then go on to Holland to live with his grandmother. But he liked Britain so much that he stayed.

David Bedford, the Virgin London Marathon’s international race director, likes to recall the time he managed to persuade Farah to have a night out with him and others in 2006, at the end of which the runner decided to take off all his clothes and jump into the Thames off Kingston Bridge.

"I don’t have as many nights out nowadays," he told me. "But if I have something to celebrate in the future, anything can happen!"

Let’s hope that, once he had recovered his emotions after completing his Barcelona double, someone was keeping a careful of an eye on him…

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames