Sir Mo Farah

Olympic Superstar and athletics track-legend, Mo Farah is one of the most decorated long distance runners in modern sporting history. Mo currently is the Olympic Champion for both the 5000m and 10000m track events. Mo has become a media sensation thanks to his charming personality and world famous ‘Mobot’ signature move, used every time he stuns crowds with his amazing speed and stamina. A warm and inviting character, Mo is a wonderful Olympic speaker who specialises in engaging young and underprivileged audiences. 

Originally Somalian born, Mo moved to the UK aged 8 to join his father in London, where his sporting ability was first noticed by his school PE Teacher whilst playing football. Farah represented Hounslow in cross-country and athletics, winning five English Schools titles as well as finding success at the European Junior Athletics Championship.

During his senior career, Mo continued his growing success, breaking European and British records on his way to becoming the world’s best long-distance track athlete. At the 2012 London Games, all of Mo’s hard altitude training in Ethiopia paid off with two incredibly famous and memorable Olympic Gold medals, for the 5000m and 10000m events.  The noise in the stadium in the final stages of the 5000m was reportedly so loud that television cameras began to shake and the photo finish became distorted.

Most recently, Mo has set the European 1500m record with a time of 3:28.81. The sixth-fastest man ever in this distance continued to display his incredible skill when he became the oldest World Championship winner at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics. In 2016, Farah took gold in the 10,000 and 5,000 metres at the Rio Olympics before announcing his retirement from track events to become a marathon runner. By 2018, he was a full-time marathon runner and managed to finish third at the London run before securing gold at the Chicago Marathon.

It was announced in 2019 that Mo was planning on making a return to track events in time for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. In March, he managed to win his second London Big Half Marathon, came fifth in the London Marathon and secured first place at the 2019 Great North Run. In 2020, Mo took time away from the track to appear in the 2020 series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! in which he placed fifth. Most recently in 2022, Mo starred in the The Real Mo Farah documentary on the BBC, in which he revealed his life story of being illegally trafficked to the UK as a child and his true identity as Hussein Abdi Kahin. 

Mo overcame the huge pressure that had ensued with the build up to the games, performing spectacularly and achieving everything he had ever hoped for. The ability to perform despite huge pressure is a fantastic attribute to have and Mo shares his invaluable advice with audiences during speeches as an Olympic speaker. Mo is happy to appear at conferences and events to give his insightful story as an Olympic speaker of performing at the highest levels of athletics. Equally at home participating in question and answer sessions, Mo enjoys delivering anecdotal tales of his regime that makes him the world’s very best.

In 2021, Champions Speakers sat down with Mo to discuss the adversity he overcame to succeed as an athlete and which celebrity coined the iconic term, the 'Mo-Bot'! Find out more in our Exclusive Interview with Sir Mo Farah.