Manchester: Long-distance Olympic champion Mo Farah’s chances of competing at the Tokyo Olympics disappeared as one of the most successful British athletes failed once again to achieve the qualification time of 27min 28sec at the specially-arranged race at the British Athletics Championships.
The 38-year-old Farah, who won a grand double clinching the 5,000m and 10,000m gold at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics, had on June 5 failed to clock the qualification time at the European Athletics 10,000m Cup in Birmingham, timing 27:50:54, which was his slowest since 2014 and good enough for eighth place.
On Friday, he failed once again, though his time of 27:47.04 was marginally better than the June 5 race.
Farah was on target pace through the halfway mark, but by the 6,000m mark, he began to drop off the pace.
With 2,000m to go, he was 10 seconds adrift and kept losing time.
“It’s a tough one. I’ve had an amazing career, thinking about it tonight it’s a bit shocking and I don’t really know what to say. I’m lucky enough to have so many medals.
“I’m one of these athletes who, if you can’t compete with the best, why bother? Maybe it’s time to spend time with my kids,” Farah was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
