Mo Farah sure he will stay on track

Mo Farah: A new PB at 3,000 metres. Picture: Getty

The double Olympic champion, who raced to a dominant 3,000 metres victory at the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday after a personal best 7min 36sec, will make his marathon debut in London next spring.

But, following an interview in which he suggested he would turn his attention solely to the road following next month’s World Championships, Farah emphasised that was absolutely not the case. “100 per cent I’ll be back on the track and hopefully in 2014 [stepping] up to a marathon,” he explained.

“When I’m done [with the track] I’ll tell you, but it’s been misunderstood.”

Asked if he thought it was possible to do a 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon treble at the Rio Olympics in 2016, he said: “I think what’s more do-able is the 10,000m and the marathon, because the 10,000m is first and then the marathon is right at the end, so it gives you a bit of time to recover. It has been done.

“It will just depend how I am. It takes years of planning and I can’t get that excited about it. It’s something I would like to do, it would be great to do it, but you can’t get excited about it. You’ve just got to take one year at a time and one race at a time.”

Farah also challenged Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, to a charity race over an intermediate distance.

He said: “He’s got his charity foundation, I’ve got the Mo Farah Foundation. It would be great to do a distance where people vote in – proper athletics fans – on what distance they think is most suitable.”

He then told Bolt: “Are you up for that? Come on, you’ve got to do it.”

The 30-year-old said the distance would have to be between 600m and 800m. “Let’s get it on,” he said.