Farah's performances in Spain, where he also became the first Briton to win a European 10,000m gold, have since been surpassed by the world 5,000m gold and 10,000m silver from Daegu last year, but this victory – albeit in the relatively modest time of 13min 29.91sec against a field whose swiftest challenger had a personal best more than 12 seconds slower than his – was what he needed as he looks ahead to the challenge of winning home gold at the London 2012 Olympics.

Victory was hardly a surprise for the 29-year-old Briton – but the news that he had become the first man to retain the European 5,000m title clearly was, as his face lit up.

"Seriously?" he responded.

"Get in there, yes!

"How cool is that?"

Reflecting on his Olympic prospects, Farah, due to leave on an early flight to his Font Romeu training base in France early the next morning, said: "I've improved a lot in two years and come a long way, but a Europeans is a Europeans and I'm happy.

"One of those boys beat me in the European Under-23s so it shows how far I've come.

"I've got that confidence and this is going in the right direction heading for London.

"I've just got to stay injury free – what is it, less than 30 days?"

A third European title was something that registered clearly with Farah.


"This means a lot, as an athlete you take it for granted when things are going well, but when things aren't going well and you're not quite there it's harder," he said.

"I remember back in the day working towards that and keep coming second and when I finally started winning that was a great relief.

"Then when I come second in Gothenburg at the 2006 Europeans and waiting for four years was hard and I had to keep thinking about it every time.

"Barcelona was a really great taste and I got really emotional after the 5k but a European medal is a European medal and it would be nice for me to come back every four years personally because it makes you more hungry and want it.

"I'm happy to win.

"The race went well, I thought I was going to go similar, but the reason I went to the front was that there were too many guys there and it was too slow.

"I wanted to run fast, but my aim was to run hard without pulling anything.

"I knew training had been going well and had good speed, but in my position you always have to respect and there were a couple of guys there where I had to work hard until the end.

"There's a lot of stuff that needs to be worked on, I'll look back and watch the race and sit down with my coach and tell him how I felt, but today the most important thing was to get a good race, see what I could run on the last lap."


Silver went to Arne Gabius of Germany in 13.31.83, with bronze being won by Turkey's adopted Kenyan runner, Polat Arikan, whose personal best of 13:05.98 was the closest to the Briton's best of 12:53.11 – that is, not very close.

Farah, after taking his customary position right at the back, moved into the lead with five-and-a-half laps remaining, although it took a 53.6 seconds last lap to shed the field from his shoulders as he created a five metres gap around the final bend, which had turned into 15 metres by a finish which was markedly not marked by his recently established "Mobot" celebration (pictured above).

Farah's action in engaging his Mobot 100 metres before winning his 1500m heat at the British Olympic trials in Birmingham last Friday (June 22) – where he never intended to run in the final – was fiercely criticised by veteran runner Anthony Whiteman, who followed him home in fifth place and accused him of being "disrespectful" to the other athletes.

"It is disrespectful to the athletes behind him working their backsides off," Whiteman wrote in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph.

"If he spends even a second thinking about his celebration in London, he will lose."

Whiteman also criticised Farah's decision not to run the final.

"That is moving away from athletics and towards celebrity," he wrote.

"Jessica Ennis would not have done that.

"She is an athlete first and a celebrity second."

A day of largely sunny weather with rainy spells ended with a large rainbow making an appearance against the grey clouds gathering beyond the flagged rim of the stadium.

And Farah's pot of Olympic gold now looks like something genuinely attainable.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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