A week after doing his bit to
ensure the Newham and Essex Beagles senior men won the ERRA National Road Relay
Championships in Sutton Park, Birmingham, Mo Farah has won the Bupa Great South
Run in Southsea, Portsmouth.
Mo who appropriately wore race
number 1, made a spectacular recovery after a slow start came from sharing fourth
position with Beagle’s team mate Moumin Geele to score a thrilling first place victory
by picking off the 2008 3rd placed Kenya’s Luke Kibet, and sprinting
past the winner of the 2009 Great North Run South, Africa’s Stephen Mokoka with
150m to go in a time of 00:46:25.
Mo said: ''The boys didn't make it easy at all for me.
''I think they wanted to get rid of me. Stephen went off and kept pushing
and pushing, and he and Luke opened a gap on me.''
Despite falling behind, Mo, the first Briton to win the Great South Run since Gary
Staines scored his third and final victory in 1996, was always confident of his
tactics.
''We went through 10km, and I knew it was quite fast, and with the last two
miles knowing it was going to be windy, I was thinking I must keep some energy
because conditions weren't easy,'' Farah said.
Mo, now the UK's third-fastest performer, insisted: ''The crowd made a big
difference for me, they kept cheering my name - it's a nice feeling,
particularly in those last two miles.''
Mo was in good company with team
mates from last week’s National Road Relay Championships taking top 10 finishes.
Moumin Geele finished in 5th place with a time of 00:48:00, with Lee
Merrien finishing in 10th place in 00:49:23.
