Britain’s Mo Farah indicated Saturday he might compete in the marathon at the 2016 Olympics in Rio rather than defend the 5,000 and 10,000 metres titles he won at last year’s London Games.
Farah is set to run in both the 5,000 and 10,000m at next month’s World Championships in Moscow but will then turn his attention to the marathon for the remainder of the 2013 season.
The 30-year-old Farah, after showing his form with a comfortable 3,000m win in the London Anniversary Diamond League meeting at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday told Sky Sports that Moscow would mark the end of his track running programme this year.
“For me, this will be it. No more on the track. I’ll be doing the Great North Run half-marathon (in September) and then I’ll take a break, hopefully somewhere nice, and then get ready for the marathon.”
As for switching to the marathon permanently in the run-up to Rio, Farah said: “We’ll see, it depends. If I’m good at the marathon and it works well, you could see me in the marathon (in Rio). If it doesn’t work out, you could see me back on the track.”
Farah, returning to the scene of his superb double triumph, won the 3,000m on Saturday when he burst clear with just over a lap left to finish first in a time of seven minutes 36.85 seconds. There had been speculation he might attempt to break David Moorcroft’s 31-year-old British record for the distance of 7:32.79 secs but with the world championships looming on the horizon, Farah said he’d no such plan Saturday.
Instead, as was the case at last year’s Olympics, he was cheered to the echo by a capacity crowd.
Earlier Farah said: “I am (the man to beat) and that’s hard sometimes. Every time you race you’re a marked man with an X on your back.”