Legendary runner Sir Mo Farah has failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.
The four-time Olympic champion missed the qualifying time in an invitational 10,000 at the British athletics championships in Manchester on Saturday.
The 38-year-old needed to go under 27 minutes 28 seconds to earn his place on the plane to Tokyo ahead of Sunday’s deadline but he clocked 27 minutes 47.04 seconds, and will not defend the 10,000 title he won in 2012 and 2016. Farah was also a double-Olympic champion in the 5,000m.
It was the first time he had lost a 10,000m race in a decade having decided to return to the track after focusing on the marathon since 2017.
What it means for Uganda’s golden boy Joshua Cheptegei
Uganda has won only two Olympic gold medals at Olympics, with John Akii-Bua winning the 400m hurdles in 1972 and Stephen Kiprotich winning the marathon 40 years later in London.
This year, all eyes will be on Cheptegei to bring more gold glory to Uganda as he now holds the world time records for both the 5,000m-10,000m races. The 24 year old is expected to complete the 5,000m-10,000m double at an Olympic Games.
Cheptegei is not new on the Olympics games track, as a teenager in 2016, he finished eighth and sixth in the 5,000m and 10,000m finals respectively in Rio.
In several interviews, he has always said that his focus is on becoming just the eighth man to successfully complete the 5,000m-10,000m double at an Olympic Games. And Mo Farah is the last man to do the double at both London 2012 and Rio 2016.
With Mo Farah out, Cheptegei’s biggest threats will come from athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia who have also been dominant at the Olympics games.
Tokyo Olympic games are slated to start on July 23.