Sophie Becker, Tadhg Furlong, Kevin Doyle - what is it about those little shithole parishes around New Ross?!
New Ross shines like a beacon to them. If you don’t work hard you’ll end up in this shit hole for the rest of your life
Astute analysis
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I expected her to blow the field away based on her US performances. I wonder if she’ll be better over 200 or 400 long term as her start seemed slow. Maybe that was the false start or whatever beforehand though
Cold, wet and windy doesn’t help. Not sure when she arrived home either.
I think 400m is where she’ll end up being strongest.
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Just rewatching some of the races I missed last night. Israel Olatunde was ridiculously impressive in the 100m final. He could be the first Irish man to make a 100m European final later this summer which would be some achievement.
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Only seeing some of the finishes from the Morton Games tonight. This is a ridiculous finish to the 1500m. First Irish man to win it since James Nolan in 2004. Atmosphere looks electric
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Yer man is a bit mixed up. The 6.16 WR was set this week - he’s 22 now. His indoor record 6.20 is higher than his outdoor record.
Fucking hell…
Sir Mo Farah was brought to the UK illegally as a child and forced to work as a domestic servant, he has revealed.
The Olympic star has told the BBC he was given the name Mohamed Farah by those who flew him over from Djibouti. His real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin.
He was flown over from the east African country aged nine by a woman he had never met, and then made to look after another family’s children, he says.
“For years I just kept blocking it out,” the Team GB athlete says.
“But you can only block it out for so long.”
The long-distance runner has previously said he came to the UK from Somalia with his parents as a refugee.
But in a documentary by the BBC and Red Bull Studios, seen by BBC News and airing on Wednesday, he says his parents have never been to the UK - his mother and two brothers live on their family farm in the breakaway state of Somaliland.
His father, Abdi, was killed by stray gunfire when Sir Mo was four years old, in civil violence in Somalia. Somaliland declared independence in 1991 but is not internationally recognised.
Sir Mo says he was about eight or nine years old when he was taken from home to stay with family in Djibouti. He was then flown over to the UK by a woman he had never met and wasn’t related to.
She told him he was being taken to Europe to live with relatives there - something he says he was “excited” about. “I’d never been on a plane before,” he says.
The woman told him to say his name was Mohamed. He says she had fake travel documents with her that showed his photo next to the name “Mohamed Farah”.
When they arrived in the UK, the woman took him to her flat in Hounslow, west London, and took a piece of paper off him that had his relatives’ contact details on.
“Right in front of me, she ripped it up and put it in the bin. At that moment, I knew I was in trouble,” he says.
Sir Mo says he had to do housework and childcare “if I wanted food in my mouth”. He says the woman told him: “If you ever want to see your family again, don’t say anything.”
“Often I would just lock myself in the bathroom and cry,” he says.
For the first few years the family didn’t allow him to go to school, but when he was about 12 he enrolled in Year 7 at Feltham Community College.
Staff were told Sir Mo was a refugee from Somalia.
His old form tutor Sarah Rennie tells the BBC he came to school “unkempt and uncared for”, that he spoke very little English and was an “emotionally and culturally alienated” child.
She says the people who said they were his parents didn’t attend any parents’ evenings.
Sir Mo’s PE teacher, Alan Watkinson, noticed a transformation in the young boy when he hit the athletics track.
“The only language he seemed to understand was the language of PE and sport,” he says.
Sir Mo says sport was a lifeline for him as “the only thing I could do to get away from this [living situation] was to get out and run”.
He eventually confided in Mr Watkinson about his true identity, his background, and the family he was being forced to work for.
‘The real Mo’
The PE teacher contacted social services and helped Sir Mo to be fostered by another Somali family.
“I still missed my real family, but from that moment everything got better,” Sir Mo says.
“I felt like a lot of stuff was lifted off my shoulders, and I felt like me. That’s when Mo came out - the real Mo.”
Sir Mo began making a name for himself as an athlete and aged 14 he was invited to compete for English schools at a race in Latvia - but he didn’t have any travel documents.
Mr Watkinson helped him apply for British citizenship under the name Mohamed Farah, which was granted in July 2000.
In the documentary, barrister Alan Briddock tells Sir Mo his nationality was technically “obtained by fraud or misrepresentations”.
Legally, the government can remove a person’s British nationality if their citizenship was obtained through fraud.
However, Mr Briddock explains the risk of this in Sir Mo’s case is low.
“Basically, the definition of trafficking is transportation for exploitative purposes,” he tells Sir Mo.
“In your case, you were obliged as a very small child yourself to look after small children and to be a domestic servant. And then you told the relevant authorities, ‘that is not my name’. All of those combine to lessen the risk that the Home Office will take away your nationality.”
Running ‘saved me’
Sir Mo says he wants to tell his story to challenge public perceptions of trafficking and slavery.
“I had no idea there was so many people who are going through exactly the same thing that I did. It just shows how lucky I was,” he says.
“What really saved me, what made me different, was that I could run.”
The woman who brought Sir Mo to London has been approached by the BBC for comment, but has not responded.
Bump the people who must be shitting it thread
You’d imagine after all that happening you’d think fuck it I deserve a bit of EPO to run against these other cunts.
It seems odd that it hasn’t come to light before now, you’d imagine someone has tried to speak with his family etc for interviews
However it would be an incredibly strange thing to make up
Bad news on the doping front coming down the line I’d say
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Somolian Mo Farah
How did he get citizenship with forged papers ?
I don’t believe a word that comes out of this fellas mouth, Salazar must be about to sing
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