Twin Ambitions - My Autobiography

by Mo Farah

  ‘Hang on a minute, Mo. You still haven’t got your documents sorted,’ he reminded me. My application at the Home Office had been dragging on and on. Then Alan pointed to the bottom paragraph of the letter. ‘It says here that you need a ten-year passport in order to go on this trip. You don’t have that. Even if we get your documents in order, I’m not sure it’s possible for you to fly out there.’

  I tried to hide it, but I’m sure Alan saw right through me. I badly wanted to make this trip. Latvia was one thing. I’d never dreamed of going to Latvia as a kid. But this was Walt Disney. Florida. The USA. I’d never been anywhere on holiday in my life, and I really wanted to go.

  Alan said, ‘We’ll give it our best shot, Mo. Just don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t happen. This is a big ask. But I doubt very much whether we’ll be able to get everything sorted in time.’

  We had two months until the trip. To his credit, Alan worked round the clock to get me on that plane. He really stepped up, big time. He got on the phone to the Home Office and begged them to speed up my application. He wrote to our local MP. He drove me up to the Home Office in Croydon again. This time my Aunt Kinsi came along for the ride. Some official turned us both away without giving an explanation. Both my aunt and me were left totally confused. Alan had momentarily disappeared to buy a bottle of water. When he came back, he saw us trudging out of the building and asked me what had happened. I told him about being turned away. Alan marched us back inside and went up to the nearest member of staff and demanded an answer. Finally, we got an appointment. Alan explained to the member of staff that I was a talented young athlete who’d been picked for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and we had only a few weeks to get my papers in order, and was there any way in the world that things could be speeded up? We got the same non-committal response as before: ‘We’ll see what we can do.’

  Not to be outdone, Alan then spoke to Alan Keen, the local MP for Feltham and Heston, to try and get my application fast-tracked. Even Tony Banks, the sports minister at the time, got involved. But the Home Office weren’t sympathetic. They said to Alan, ‘Why should we process this young man’s application ahead of someone who wants to go home and visit a sick or dying relative?’

  I didn’t know what else we could do. I was starting to think that maybe Florida wouldn’t happen. And then one day at the end of February, I got a letter through the post. It was my indefinite leave to remain. Now I could apply for the documents permitting me to travel, which I duly received.

  There was still one more hurdle to overcome. I couldn’t fly anywhere without a visa for the country I was visiting. We had only two weeks left before the flight to Orlando and I needed to get a US tourist visa in order to have permission to fly. There was no time to lose. Alan wrote to the American Embassy in London and told them about my exceptional circumstances, asking if there was anything they could do. I think someone must have called in a favour because my application was automatically bumped to the top of the queue. I had my appointment at the embassy on the Thursday, just over a week before I was due to travel. A week later they issued me with the tourist visa. I flew out of Gatwick the following Monday.

  I was going to Florida.

  6

  DREAMLAND

  FOR the second time in my life, I flew on a plane. This time there were no alarms going off. No cargo holds opening in the middle of the flight. Just a planeload of teenage athletes bubbling with excitement. I couldn’t wait to arrive in Florida. I was going on the trip of a lifetime.

  I can’t emphasize enough how important this trip was in my decision to become an athlete. Florida was my first chance to spend time away from home, to live and train in a pure athletics environment. More than a hundred of us travelled to the camp: runners, cyclists, swimmers, gymnasts, badminton and basketball players, the best emerging talent in Britain. Among the other runners at the camp was Tim Benjamin, who went on to win the European Junior and World Youth titles, place 5th in the 2005 World Championships and compete in the 2004 Olympic Games. Also there was the sprinter, Mark Lewis-Francis. He was the top 100 metres talent in the world at the time. He won everything as a junior – World Youths, World Juniors and European Juniors. He went on to win gold in the 4 × 100 metres in the 2004 Olympic Games and took silver in the 100 metres in both the European Championships and Commonwealth Games in 2010. Borough of Hounslow AC was well represented with Nicola Sanders, who won silver in the 400 metres in the World Championships in 2007 in Osaka and gold in the 4 × 400 metres relay in the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul in 2012. There was also Goldie Sayers (a javelin thrower who won a string of national titles), Aaron Evans, who was doing great things at 400 metres – not to mention Nathan Palmer, a Welsh kid who specialized in the 110 metres hurdles and was posting faster times than Colin Jackson (a three times world champion and world record holder) at the same age. There was an awful lot of young British talent at that camp. Malcolm Hassan, my ‘partner-in-crime’, was in the group too.

  Some of the national newspapers sent journalists to cover the trip. They asked me about growing up in Somalia, how I had found life in England to begin with. One reporter asked me who my hero was. ‘Haile Gebrselassie,’ I replied without hesitation. ‘I like the way he runs. I’d like to do the same. It would mean a great deal for me to run for Great Britain.’

  My jaw hit the floor when we arrived in Orlando. I’d been amazed at how big everything was when I’d first arrived in Britain. But compared to the US, everything back home looked tiny. Cars, buildings, food portions: they were all double the size in America. Actually, I didn’t know how big the US was until one of the other kids pointed it out to me at the camp. They were like, ‘Can you name all fifty states?’ and I was like, ‘For real, there are fifty states?’ I’d figured that the US and the UK were about the same size. It’s safe to say that geography was never one of my favourite subjects at school.

  The idea behind UK Athletics (UKA) sending a large group of kids to a warm-weather camp in Orlando was to bring together the best young athletes in the country and allow us to train in the same environment as the likes of the senior USA team. Nowadays training camps for promising athletes are standard, but back then none of us had ever worked in such an environment. I’ve already described how Feltham Arena, where I trained, was badly in need of repairs. Some of the swimmers at the camp told me that back home they had to get up at the crack of dawn and train in 25-metre pools, half the size of the Olympic standard. Similarly, gymnasts talked about practising in knackered old sports halls. For many of us, Florida was the first time we had access to state-of-the-art training facilities. There was a brand-new athletics track where several of the Team USA sprinters trained. There was a state-of-the-art gym with weights rooms and exercise machines, a sports stadium with seating for 9,000 people, an Olympic-standard swimming pool, specialist medical facilities, playing fields, clay tennis courts, baseball fields and football pitches. There was even a cross country course designed to the specifications of the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF). The list was endless.

  The camp had everything we wanted. The weather was beautiful: warm, clear skies, hot in the day but cool and breezy in the evenings. Everything was paid for. We were put up in a luxury hotel and offered as much food as we could eat. Pancakes, just like Grandma did them back in Djibouti, were served for breakfast in the hotel restaurant. There was a big swimming pool where we’d chill out after training. It was just like being on a real holiday.

  Each morning we took a bus from the hotel to the training complex. There was this intense focus on athletics at the camp. Everyone took their sport seriously. Everyone trained to a high standard. It was an eye-opening experience. At Hounslow I trained twice a week. In Orlando I trained every day. There was a real professionalism about the camp. We did workshops on nutrition and sports psychology, even on how to deal with the media. I’d never seen anything like it. I got to meet some of the US track stars who were training at the camp at the time, i
ncluding Gail Devers, the American sprinter and hurdler who had won Olympic gold three times: in the 100 metres in Barcelona, and in the 100 metres and 4 × 100 metres relay at Atlanta in 1996. Gail was famous for having these really long nails, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her hands. Her nails really were as long as they looked on TV.

  When we weren’t training on the track, we went to Disney World and got to go on all the famous rides: Space Mountain, the Haunted Mansion and the Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade. I loved every minute of it. Towards the end of our stay at the camp Brian Hall, the team manager, gave a speech to all the athletes. He told us that we’d trained well and shown great potential – that we were the future of British elite running. I took what he said to heart. As we checked out of the hotel and left on the coach for the ride back to the airport and the long trip home, something clicked inside my head. Being good at distance running had given me the opportunity to train in the US. I’d had a preview of what it meant to be a top-class athlete. Doors opened for you. Things happened. If it wasn’t for running, I would never have made that trip. Suddenly it was obvious: I’d achieved all this without being truly dedicated to athletics. So imagine what I could do if I put everything into running – to being the best I could be.

  On the flight home I asked myself a simple question: ‘What is it that I need to do in order to come back here again?’ The answer was staring me in the face: ‘I’ve got to train more. I must train harder, longer. I’ve got to put in more effort in sessions. That’s what I’ve got to do.’ When I returned to London, Alan asked how my trip had gone.

  ‘Good,’ I told him. ‘I want to be a professional athlete.’

  Florida changed everything for me. On the back of that trip, my attitude completely altered. Now I approached training with the right mentality. I’d say to myself, ‘This is what I’m going to do this year. I want to win X, Y and Z races, and compete for Great Britain. What do I need to do in order to get there?’ I trained with more discipline, pushed myself to go that extra mile. Before Florida, I had this habit of missing runs that Conrad had included as part of my training programme. He’d say to me, ‘Make sure you go for a run this weekend, Mo.’ And I’d nod and be like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ Then I’d play football instead. All that changed after Florida. I never missed a run or a training session again. I still loved football, but at the same time I knew I had to devote myself to athletics if I was going to fulfil my potential.

  Alan noticed a big difference in my attitude when I came back. I stopped having kick-abouts in the sports hall before training. Athletics became my whole life. Before Florida I was restless. Now I channelled all my energy into athletics. I wanted to make it as an athlete and nothing was going to stop me. I had Alan to thank for getting me on that plane, for opening up my horizons and showing me what was waiting out there if I was willing to reach out and seize it. As a thank you, I brought him back a gift – a mug with ‘WORLD’S BEST TEACHER’ written on the side.

  One of the good things about athletics is that there’s no downtime, no off-season. There’s always a race coming up to focus on. For a restless guy like me, that’s perfect. I don’t think I’d handle a close-season, with loads of time off, very well. When the cross country season was over, it was straight on to the track for the athletics season. There were races sponsored by Reebok, English Schools races, trials for the European and World Junior Championship. In July 1999 I won the 1500 metres at the English Schools Track & Field Championships in Bury St Edmunds. I started travelling more. Up to that point, I’d competed mainly across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. After Florida and my victories in the English Schools races, I had more and more opportunities to compete abroad. Unfortunately, I needed a visa for every country I wanted to travel to. Alan stepped up again. Over several months he took me to all the major embassies in London: Poland, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland. We got to know West London pretty well.

  But there were times when even having the visa wasn’t enough. Like the time I had a race meeting in Belgium. Because of bad weather our ferry was rerouted from Ostend to Calais in France. I had my Belgian visa stamped and ready but I didn’t have a French visa, so they wouldn’t let me through. I was gutted. All I wanted to do was get into the country, catch a train across the border and head across to the race meeting. Alan argued my case, but the border guys wouldn’t budge. Eventually we gave up and returned home. I didn’t understand why it had been such a problem. For me, all I wanted to do was race.

  I put that episode behind me and in mid-July I competed in the 3000 metres event at the World Youth Championships in Poland. This was my first taste of running against the Kenyans and Ethiopians. I finished fifth. Pius Muli of Kenya won it; a promising young Ethiopian runner called Kenenisa Bekele finished second. (Bekele went on to dominate world distance running, winning three Olympic golds, five World Championships golds, 11 World Cross Country titles and setting world records at both 5000 metres and 10,000 metres.) I was nearly 13 seconds behind Muli. In domestic and European meets, with no East Africans to compete against, I continued to win easily. At the Under-19s European meet in Neubrandenburg in Germany I won the 3000 metres in a four-way race against Germany, France and Poland. I was starting to achieve recognition on the athletics circuit, making a name for myself.

  That summer, at the age of sixteen, I finished at Feltham Community College. Alan Watkinson also left and took up a new post as head of year at Isleworth & Syon School, which was up the road from Feltham. This was great timing. I was looking for a way to continue running, and switching to the sixth-form college at Isleworth was perfect. My grades weren’t up to scratch, but Alan promised to have a word with the head teacher at Isleworth to see about bringing me over with him. At the time, Isleworth were Feltham’s great rivals in school athletics in the borough, and, as it turned out, the school was only too happy to welcome me. I still had to work on my grades, so I divided my time between going to Isleworth, studying to resit my English Language and Maths GCSEs at a college in Richmond, and training at the athletics club. At the weekends I went out for runs and competed in events. The only downside was that I didn’t see as much of Alan at Isleworth. He was teaching history for a year instead of PE, and I was spending more and more time training at the club under the guidance of Conrad Milton.

  A year or so after I started at Isleworth, our athletics club merged with another club: Windsor Slough & Eton. This wasn’t a major surprise. The writing had been on the wall for a while for Borough of Hounslow. Feltham Arena had that worn-out look about it. The council didn’t have the funds to lay down a new track. Eventually the club couldn’t even get insured to host competitions. Conrad, Alex and the other coaches didn’t feel very confident working there. There had been talk of the club moving from Feltham Arena and the local council laying down a brand-new track at my old school, Feltham Community College. Everyone was in favour of it – the school, the club, the coaches. They mentioned my name as someone who’d benefited from the club and could inspire other kids to get into athletics. Sadly, nothing ever came of the talks. The track never got built. Feltham Arena fell into neglect. Borough of Hounslow had no choice but to merge with their Berkshire neighbours. The new club was named Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow Athletic Club.

  The big positive from the merger was that Hounslow got the benefit of sharing top-class training facilities. The club was based at the brand-new Thames Valley Athletics Centre in the grounds of Eton College. Still, leaving Feltham was a bit of a blow for athletics in Hounslow, and for me personally. Instead of a short drive north up the A312 to Feltham Arena, going to training sessions now involved a 25-mile round trip beyond Heathrow. It doesn’t sound far, but for a schoolkid, that’s quite a trek. If the club had been based at Eton when I started running at the age of eleven, I doubt I’d have made it over there.

  I began making more friends both inside and beyond the club. Scott Overall was a good mate of mine. He was a member at Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow and later c
ompeted in the marathon at London 2012. Scott was never a troublemaker. He was the complete opposite of me. I’d be taking the mick with Abdi Ali, but Scott never went in for any of that stuff. He was always that little bit more serious. That didn’t stop us from getting on really well. We had that same competitive drive. Often we’d meet up outside the club to go for runs around Bushy Park in nearby Teddington. We’d arrange a meeting place, usually the McDonald’s on Twickenham Road, and then head down to the park for a few laps.

  I also got to know Carlton Cole, a sprinter who later became a professional footballer and played for Chelsea, Aston Villa and West Ham. We met through a mutual friend, another sprinter by the name of Darren Chin. Darren is still one of my best mates. He used to teach me about sprinting techniques. He was on the verge of qualifying for the 2005 60 metres final at the European Indoor Championships in Madrid when he pulled up with a hamstring injury. If it hadn’t been for that injury, Darren would’ve made the final, and who knows what he might have gone on to achieve?

  Outside the club, I made good friends on the athletics circuit. There was Malcolm Hassan, of course. There was also Chris Thompson, who was based over at Loughborough. He ran for Aldershot, Farnham & District Athletics Club. I’d come up against him a few times and we were considered fierce rivals at junior cross country. Chris had been the top guy in Britain at junior cross country before I showed up; he’d won a string of UK Trial, English and Southern titles, and finished third in the English Schools race in the year I won it at Newark Showground. We’d both competed in the European Junior Championships in December 1999 in Slovenia (I finished fifth). We also helped the junior GB team to win gold. Chris was a couple of years older than me and that little bit further along with his development, winning silver in the 2000 European Junior Championship in Malmö. I finished the same race down in seventh place.