Mo Farah targets London Marathon WIN and fires warning at rival Eliud Kipchoge

A teenage Mo Farah is stepping off a bus in Hounslow with his friends when his own image flickers on to a large TV screen in a shop window. Played out in front of him is the first of a hat-trick of victories in the mini-London Marathon earlier that day.

From the junior runners, footage quickly cuts to the elite race and he recalls: “I remember thinking, ‘How can anyone possibly run such a long way?’. It now seems strange that I’m doing those same 26.2 miles.”

The switch by Farah to marathon had, at first, been a tentative step to see if he could turn his skills from track to road. After a failed foray in 2014, in 2018 he exceeded expectations with a podium finish at the London Marathon, before winning in Chicago just a month ago.

In the wake of such results, he has markedly shifted his own opinion of what is possible at his home marathon in five months’ time, to which he officially committed this morning.

“I definitely want to win it,” he says. “It’s one of the biggest things for any athlete, particularly as a London athlete. If you’d asked me a couple of years ago, I would have told you I was just happy to compete or finish on the podium.

“Now I want to mix it with the best. There’s no question of doubt in my mind that I’ll win the London Marathon — it’s just a question of when and how.”

The one major obstacle to that quest is world record-holder Eliud Kipchoge, who has won 10 of the 11 marathons in which he has raced (it took a world record from compatriot Dennis Kimetto in Berlin in 2014 to inflict his only defeat) and looks a certainty to line up in London once more.

But Farah adds: “I have a lot of respect for Eliud, but do I fear him? No. And do I think I can beat him? Yes. He’s run faster than me and he’s a better athlete than me at the moment. Right now, he’s beyond anyone else.

“In that way, I’d compare him to Anthony Joshua, in that he’s the top of the heavyweight boxing division, but it only takes one great fight to knock him down.”

So, if Kipchoge is Joshua in Farah’s own cross-sport analogy, is the Londoner more in the mould of a Deontay Wilder or Tyson Fury?

“I’m definitely a Tyson Fury,” he says, warming to the theme. “You don’t know what you’re going to get. On the day, when it matters, I feel I can put on the best show.”

Mo Farah

Farah makes no secret of the fact that the London Marathon is his No1 goal for next season, despite previously hinting at other ambitions in 2019: namely a potential surprise return to the track, from which he retired last year, in the 10,000metres at the World Championships in Doha.

Such a foray would mean other track warm-up events, to the extent he admits he could yet return to the London Stadium, scene of both his first Olympic golden double in 2012 and his last world title in 2017.

“To be honest, I’ve not discussed that in great detail with my coach, but I love being able to run for my country and win medals for my country,” he says. “You don’t get that many chances to do that.

“So, maybe I need to take a step back and watch my competitors on TV and, if I’m still excited by the idea, it’s something to consider. But I’m a marathon runner for now, looking ahead to London. I might go to the Worlds in the 10k or the marathon, I just don’t know.”

Should he opt to make a U-turn, is there not a dual risk by going to the track of derailing his promising marathon ambitions or alternatively ending his track career on a dud note, akin to Usain Bolt at London 2017 in what proved to be one championship too far for the Jamaican?

“I don’t know,” says Farah. “That’s where my coach comes in. I could go for it if I’m in the shape of my life, or then again we could decide not to. It’s tricky because it’s competing for my country that drives me.”

The relationship with that coach, Gary Lough, the husband and former coach of world record-holder Paula Radcliffe, has been a hit. From day one, Farah says, the pair clicked.

And it is to Lough that he channels much of the credit for his impressive 2018 on the road, admitting it is easy to believe in someone who helped lay the ground for Radcliffe’s marathon world record, which has stood for 15 years.

Comparing his track forays at an Olympics or World Championships, where he would run the 10,000m and two 5,000m in the space of a week, Farah says his body reacted better to the rigours of last month’s marathon in the US.

“I felt really good after Chicago and it felt like there were a couple more gears still to go there,” he says. “Conditions weren’t great, so I know I could have run a lot faster. How much faster? I don’t really know.”

Would that improved pace in London come April be enough to reel in, arguably, the greatest marathon runner to have ever lived?

Farah, who aptly returned to The Mall this morning, said: “If we’re stride for stride coming down The Mall in April, I’ll feel I have the advantage. Eliud has the world record, but I’d have the crowd cheering me down the home straight — and that’s the big difference. Right now, I feel positive for the future. It feels like anything is possible.”