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Mo Farah is not Mo Farah

  • 12-07-2022 12:19am
    #1
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,118 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    Well wasn't expecting this twist:


    BBC News - Sir Mo Farah reveals he was trafficked to the UK as a child




«1

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,170 ✭✭✭✭Ash.J.Williams


    Heard on the radio just now , fair play to him



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    should be an interesting doc



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,084 ✭✭✭BeepBeep67


    Looks to have been pretty comfortable living a lie over the years!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,989 ✭✭✭✭NIMAN




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,698 ✭✭✭rovers_runner


    Can see it now.


    "...To cope with the pain I took to epo injections, the additional red blood cell production really helped with acceptance of my situation..."



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,340 ✭✭✭TFBubendorfer


    A child was smuggled into the UK and basically held as a slave, and some of you are now blaming the child????



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,118 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    Mo Farah is fairly safe now in that he's a Sir, won Olympic medals and it happened as a kid when he couldn't possibly be held responsible. Hopeful there isn't any consequences for his teacher who helped him source the passport so he could travel to take part in schools competitions.


    I'm sure there was articles previously discussing his twin brother, was that actually his brother and how come the detail about his dad bringing him to the UK didn't get spotted as fake at that point, seeing as his dad was killed when he was 4?



  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL


    He tends to go missing when certain people call to his house alright.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 87,496 ✭✭✭✭JP Liz V1




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,031 ✭✭✭✭Johnboy1951


    So he, as an adult, took a knighthood under false pretenses.

    Should there be no repercussions?

    Should he not have refused it and/or come clean at that time?

    He has lived a lie all his adult life. I see no merit in that. Quite the opposite.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,537 ✭✭✭Glencarraig


    Priti Patel will have him on the next plane to Rawanda.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,484 ✭✭✭✭Murph_D




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,671 ✭✭✭StevenToast


    This is not the only lie hes been living with....

    ...maybe he is building up to reveal the whole truth....

    "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." - Fletcher



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,610 ✭✭✭muddypaws


    Do you really think that backgrounds are not gone over with a fine tooth comb before knighthoods are given?


    I don't see how he's lived a lie? He was taken into care by social services as a child when he confided in a teacher. From that point on officialdom knew his background. If he chose not to share it with the public - that's his business.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,730 ✭✭✭Ceepo


    Had to turn off the documentry after 5 minutes.

    I just don't believe a word he says.

    He should probably refund anyone who bought his Autobiography



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,877 ✭✭✭squinn2912


    What i don’t like is that he seems to be sensationalising things as his sporting career winds down. He had a hard upbringing one way or another. I don’t find him endearing but that doesn’t change much. I’m not overly interested in his story or whatever version he has currently decided to tell (with his team)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,695 ✭✭✭Lisha




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,698 ✭✭✭rovers_runner


    Can anyone who read his autobiography outline the version of his upbringing he gave at that point?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,991 ✭✭✭griffin100


    Trafficked into slavery as a child but he shouldn’t be talking about it as no one cares and he probably deserved it because he’s a cheat - am I getting it right? Jesus this forum gets worse every time I visit.



  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL


    Hi Lisha.

    He has inconveniently not been at home several times when drug testers arrived. There's a lot of suspicion that he dopes.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,743 ✭✭✭Quantum Erasure


    I wouldn't trust his ''aunt'' or that other Mo Farah, if that is his real name...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 56,621 ✭✭✭✭walshb


    Big admirer of Mo, but never considered him English/Britishs anyway



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,149 ✭✭✭Xander10


    Not sure what to make of that. Given he was trafficked to the UK at such a young age under a false identity, I would have thought it would be hard to trace all parties involved. But every piece in the jigsaw was located (with one not wanting to comment when contacted).



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 56,621 ✭✭✭✭walshb


    He’s coming clean now because he was about to be exposed, I assume?!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,780 ✭✭✭Trampas


    So did he lie about his age when he was in or enrolled for school. He says it was 12 when he started school but stuff about him 11 when in school.

    This is same bbc who said he’s a drug’s cheat?



  • Registered Users Posts: 984 ✭✭✭Still stihl waters 3


    So is he a drug cheat or not, there's subtle remarks here but is this what the 'hint hints' comments above are referring too



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 56,621 ✭✭✭✭walshb




  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,118 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    Seemed like the documentary had been filmed over quite long while, didn't seem like a rush to get something out before being exposed. Had a trip to Somaliland with his kid discussion with wife about having lost contact with the "aunt" and discovering that there was a real Mo Farah at the school seemed to be news to him as well and discussing it with his family in Somaliland and another trip to Djibouti as well.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,118 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    Didn't read the book, but previous story was that he'd travelled to the UK with his father from Somalia, not Somaliland which I think might not have been a recognised country. Stuff about his dad being killed hadn't come out before, but there had been journalists speaking to his twin brother before but he kept that bit about his dad secret.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,679 ✭✭✭notAMember


    Just to put that in proportion, as far as I remember he missed two tests, one in 2010, and one in 2011. Those are the tests where the testers show up at your house. In that same period, 9 other british athletes also missed two tests. He claimed to be using noisy high altitude training oxygen machines at the time and couldn't hear the doorbell. But either way, nothing ever came of that. Is 2 missed tests a year apart, a decade ago a lot of suspicion? Form what I remember it was the red tops hyping it up.


    The story about him being trafficked is so shocking. It's verifiable, so I doubt he is making it up.



  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL


    More than missing the doorbell twice.

    https://m.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/mo-farah-would-have-had-to-miss-doorbell-ringing-several-times-over-an-hour-31317988.html

    There's more than that allegations he received injections of the controversial supplement L-carnitine before the 2014 London Marathon.

    His relationship with his banned, on doping charges, coach Alberto Salazar.



  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL


    The Haile Gebrselassie Hotel story shows him in a poor light.

    It wasn't red tops who questioned Farah's credibility on PED's.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Any word on juicing in the documentary?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,585 ✭✭✭cmac2009


    If you have some time then this is interesting in-depth read about his late development and the various controversies.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,149 ✭✭✭Xander10




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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Did he ever get his doorbell that he couldn't hear once of those 5 times fixed?

    His Donegal agent even made and submitted a video about not being able to hear the doorbell up the top of the building!

    "Farah" admitted lying about knowing dodgy coach Jama Aden when in fact he knew him for many years - why lie there?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 600 ✭✭✭The Orb


    Farah has been an inveterate liar over the years. There is every reason to suspect that this is another example.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,595 ✭✭✭Damien360


    Not according to the program I watched. He told his PE teacher when in school. He was trafficked as a domestic slave. What is odd is it has taken nearly 20 years for the story to break.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,688 ✭✭✭✭Muahahaha


    Not at all, it was a puff piece about how he was trafficked, there was nothing critical in it about him at all.

    Kind of funny to now think that Chapter 1 of his autobiography on how get got from Somalia to the UK is basically a work of ficton. The doc also showed a short clip of him on the Jonathon Ross Show where Ross asked about his family background and he lied there too, Id guess there were many more media interviews where he told the same lies to journalists about his background.

    Anyway if Farah was taking PEDs he has basically gotten away with it now. It puts huge question marks over anti doping in athletics if he got away with it for that long at the very top of the sport.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,118 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    For what purpose?


    The visa he initially travelled on is shown, his family in Somaliland is shown (and was already known about before but they had kept quiet), the lawyers looked into his status and confirmed that there was a genuine risk of him losing his British nationality (although Olympic medal and knighthood protect him somewhat from that).

    What would he have to gain by making up such a story as this?



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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,118 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    Why do the two things need to be tied together with the accusations on doping having anything to do with him having been trafficked as a kid and obtaining UK citizenship in slightly unclear circumstances?


    Nobody denies that Lance Armstrong cheated in cycling, but that has absolutely nothing to do with him having survived cancer.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,773 ✭✭✭Scotty #




  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL


    I don't know about that. There are levels of doping too.

    The rider who came 20th in the TDF in 2005 probably doped. But he wasn't on the Armstrong top notch regieme. Some seem to have a blase attitude to doping, let them at it, they're all doping etc. Firstly i'd say i wouldn't think they are all doping. There are serious health risks involved etc. You look at Flo Jo etc dying of heart attacks at a young age. Young cyclists getting heart attacks from EPO thickened blood putting pressure on their hearts. Some are intelligent enough to know they could be doing themselves irreparable harm.

    Also saying they all dope fails to recognise that doping isn't a level playing field, those with the most money will have the best regiemes and methods of hiding it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,698 ✭✭✭rovers_runner


    The thing is with Armstrong, towards the end of his career when the drugs question was prominient he hid behind his cancer experience and charity work and muddied the waters.

    It looks like that doucmentary last night was a foreward of something else that's coming, it wouldn't make sense to reveal all that and have nothing more from or about him again.



  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL


    Often a deflection angle is put out prior to a doping story. Try and muddy the waters.

    Like the way Armstrong turned Kimmage's 'the cancer of cycling has returned' into a spiel about his great efforts to fight the disease of cancer.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,989 ✭✭✭✭NIMAN


    I'd be very surprised if we are going to hear Mo doped. Or that he will admit to it. Not a chance.

    This guy is the darling of English athletics. He's a Sir ffs. Can't see him ever admitting to being a doper.

    In athletics I firmly believe the vast majority dope. Its just that some haven't been caught yet, or have retired and will never be exposed.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,149 ✭✭✭Xander10




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,610 ✭✭✭muddypaws


    Again though, I'd see his childhood experiences as playing a huge part in this. Imagine being a child taken away from everyone and thing you know and ending up in a strange country and told you had a new name and nobody could know your old name. That you had to lie to people - that the adults who took you away from your family and had control of your life in this strange place told you to lie and never tell anyone your real name or about your real family? That fear runs very very deep even into adulthood. Once you start with a lie it is very difficult to roll back on it


    I fostered young people for a London Borough, I never had an unaccompanied asylum seeker but my friends did. One girl from Africa was very secretive about her background and people that she knew in London. The huge difference in her new life - she'd never seen escalators and was scared of them and had never seen a cooker and oven, they cooked on an open fire at home. Try to imagine the feelings that come with that change of life at such an early age.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 56,621 ✭✭✭✭walshb


    The conflation here between his origins into the UK and doping accusations is bonkers.

    He’s not a doper, and won’t be admitting to be something he’s not. This has 0 to do with his entry into the UK



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,484 ✭✭✭✭Murph_D


    Research is a skill. There are actually people out there who do it for a living. There’s a lot more involved than a quick Google and clicking on page 1 of the search result.



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