📍Isleworth, London Borough of Hounslow, UK
1992 – 2001“Mo Farah was born in Somaliland in 1983, and in 2022 he revealed in a BBC documentary the truth about how he came to Britain: at about the age of nine, after his father had been killed in the civil war in Somalia, he was brought to the UK from Djibouti by a woman he did not know, under the name Mohamed Farah, and made to look after another family's children in west London. For several years he was not allowed to go to school, and he lived far from his mother and brothers, who believed he was safe with relatives. When he was about twelve, he was finally enrolled at Feltham Community College, a secondary school on the western edge of London near Heathrow, speaking little English. There his PE teacher, Alan Watkinson, noticed a football-obsessed boy who could run faster than anyone, and saw that sport was his way to connect. When Mo confided in him about his situation, Watkinson contacted social services and helped arrange for him to be fostered by a Somali family nearby. Running became his lifeline: Watkinson took him to the Borough of Hounslow Athletics Club, and Mo began winning English schools titles. In 1999 he moved with Watkinson to Isleworth and Syon School for the sixth form, and he later trained at St Mary's University in Twickenham. He went on to win four Olympic gold medals, in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres in London 2012 and Rio 2016, becoming Britain's greatest distance runner. He has kept the name Mo Farah, and he has credited Alan Watkinson with changing his life.”
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