Betting tips / Richard O’Hagan / 28 July 2012 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

Mo Farah is without doubt Great Britain's great chance for Athletics Olympics Gold, and Richard O'Hagan would like to tell you his story...

Ask anyone to name the one British banker for an athletics medal at these Games and nine times out of ten the name of Mo Farah will come up. The odds tell their own story. It is rare that anyone from outside the African continent is favoured to beat the Ethiopians and Kenyans over the long distance events, let alone both of them.

That, though, is the position that Farah finds himself in. He's the Betfair favourite @ (3.1) for the 5,000 metres and (2.52) market leader in the 10,000 metres.

In some respects it isn't surprising to find Farah in this position. He was born in Mogadishu in war-torn Somalia and grew up in Djibouti, the son of a father who grew up in Hounslow and a Somali mother. He moved to England when he was eight, but the formative years in Africa had, like many, given him a taste for running. Initially he was a keen footballer but it was his natural talent as a runner that caught the coaches' eye and by the age of 14 he was already English Schools cross country champion.

Four years later, Farah became European Junior 5000m champion. At that point his career stalled slightly. He was European cross country champion in 2006 but both before and after his major championship record was dotted with top ten finishes but no medals.

Everything changed in 2009, when he surprisingly won the European Indoor Championship at 3000m, having twice broken the British indoor record for the distance in the previous two months. Since then, his career has blossomed. In 2010 he married his long term girlfriend Tania Neill and celebrated by winning both the 5000 and 10,000m at the European Championships before becoming the first British man to run under thirteen minutes at a Diamond League meeting in August of that year (a record which he then beat in 2011).

Farah now lives in Portland, Oregon, having relocated there in 2011 to enhance his training opportunities in the more temperate climate. It is a move which paid off later than year when he became world 5,000 metre champion. In winning that race he beat Bernard Lagat, one of his main rivals in London, running away from him with two laps to go.

However, in the longer race Farah lost out in a last lap sprint to Ethiopia's Ibrahim Jeilan, who failed to make the Ethiopian team for London 2012. That is something which his main rival in this event, Kenya's Kenenisa Bekele, renowned for his sprint finish, will look to exploit.

Perhaps more significantly, Bekele was unbeaten over 10,000m from his début in 2003 until that 2011 race, where he failed to finish. Even allowing for the fact that eight years is a long time to remain at the top if any athletic event, he is a serious rival to Farah and his Betfair odds of (4.6) therefore look the better bet for this particular event.