Olympic great Mo Farah has survived gruelling track ordeals... but he says nothing was as hard as reliving his nightmare at the hands of child traffickers.
In a TV documentary earlier this year the Olympic runner disclosed was illegally trafficked to Britain at the age of nine from Djibouti and forced to work as a child servant, he has revealed. Farah said his real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin.
Recalling making the BBC film, the 5,000 and 10,000-metres champ said: “It was very nerve-wracking.
“If it wasn’t for my kids and my family I would never have gone through that. It was tough," a Daily Mirror report quoted him as saying.
“But I wanted to be honest and share that with them. For myself, I just wanted answers," Daily Mirror reported.
Sir Mo, 39, who won double Golds in London and Rio, said he was overawed by the public response to the film and inundated with messages of support from people who had been through similar experiences.
“I didn’t know there were so many people in that same situation,” he said. “It was just my story, my journey.”
According to the report, he also told of his relief on learning that the Home Office would not consider taking any action over his illegal entry at the age of nine. “I didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “Because going back to when I was a kid, we did go back to social services.
“We did do quite a lot of stuff and it didn’t get dealt with. Or it just got lost. You just learn to deal with it.”
Speaking at the GQ Men of the Year event, in association with Boss, he said it was “incredible” to be honoured for the documentary. He added: “Anything is possible with hard work.”