Defending Champion Mo Farah cruised into Friday’s final of the IAAF World Championship men’s 5000 metres.
A few easy laps to perhaps take account of his heat’s early start 10.40am Moscow time allowed the newly-crowned world 10,000m champion to dictate the later pace, and he jogged across the line as part of a five-man breakaway, with five to go through, in 13mins 23.93.
Farah is fitter, stronger and faster than he has ever been. But when he said after his weekend victory that he was taking nothing for granted, he was speaking in the knowledge that five of his rivals in Moscow have posted faster 5000m times this season.
In fact, although the 30-year-old Londoner holds the British record at 12:53.11, he has yet to break 13 minutes this year.
Three of the first four in the other 5000m heat have already done so, while the fourth, the wily old Bernard Legat, came close to outsprinting Farah in Daegu two years ago. So it’s anything but a walk in the park. For now, though, it was job done.
“That felt fine. I just wanted to do as little work as possible, freshen my legs up and get ready for the final and I did that. So I’ve just got to recover now and get ready for Friday,” said Farah.
The double Olympic champion said he had no problems to report after Saturday’s 25-lap bruiser. Having said his 10,000m victory was tougher than he thought it would be, Farah just seemed pleased to see the back of the preliminary.
“Yes, but it was a bit harder because I’m not a morning person and I had to get up at 6am for this. So I just had to deal with that, get it out of the way and get ready for the final.”
He was delighted by the qualification of his US training partner Galen Rupp, who missed out on a medal on Saturday, finishing fourth.
Rupp acted as ‘tail gunner’ for Farah yesterday, making it difficult for Edris of Ethiopia and Koech of Kenya to come around the outside as the Briton hugged the kerb.
The morning session also saw Britain’s leading high jumper Robbie Grabartz among 23 men attempting to qualify for Thursday’s final.
And there were no complaints from the Olympic bronze medallist about early starts as he enjoyed first-time clearances at every height up to 2.29m to ensure straightforward qualification.
He said, “It was really nice to come out and qualify strongly. Early starts aren’t really a problem to me so that probably played into my advantage here.
“I saw a couple of the other guys really struggle.”