16 hours ago
Sir Mo Farah's real name and family after Team GB ace's 30-year secret was outed
Sir Mo Farah will always be known for his incredible performances at the London 2012 Olympic Games, but he shocked the world in 2022 for a completely different reason
Sir Mo Farah's name will always be mentioned as one of Team GB's all-time legends at the Olympic Games. He won two gold medals in London in 2012 and two more at the Rio De Janeiro games four years later, captivating the sporting world on his way to a knighthood in 2017, where Queen Elizabeth II made him a Sir.
He will be wearing an England shirt with 'Farah' emblazoned on the back when he steps onto the Old Trafford pitch for Soccer Aid this weekend. Yet, the name on the Three Lions shirt, the name that was pinned onto his running vest and the name next to his many records is not really his.
In 2022, as part of the eye-opening BBC documentary 'The Real Mo Farah', the athlete revealed his name was not 'Mo Farah' and that he had been living under somebody else's identity.
Farah, 42, revealed his real name was Hussein Abdi Kahin. When he was only four years old, Farah, who was originally from Somaliland, lost his father, who was killed while tending to his cattle by a piece of shrapnel from a bazooka blast during Somalia's civil war.
After being sent to neighbouring Djibouti for his safety, Farah would eventually be illegally trafficked into the United Kingdom. A woman, whose identity is still unknown, pretended to be his mother and brought him to the UK under the premise that he would be staying with family.
He was instructed to come into the country under the name Mo Farah - who was a different child - and was handed illegal documents. This dangerous process went through while he was only nine years old. He realised he had taken someone else's place at the airport when he saw a man wondering why his child had not arrived.
When he got to the woman's flat, she tore up a piece of paper with his family's contact details on it and ordered him to look after the children of another family. He told the BBC: "If I wanted food in my mouth, my job was to look after those kids, shower them, cook for them, clean for them. She said, 'If you ever wanna see your family again, don't say anything.' Often I would just lock myself in the bathroom and cry."
At the age of 11, Farah enrolled into Feltham Community College. Teachers and other staff at the school were told he was a refugee from Somalia. His form tutor Sarah Rennie said Farah was, "unkempt and uncared for" and "emotionally and culturally alienated," largely due to the lack of English he spoke.
It was during PE lessons when the teachers realised he was an athletics prodigy. Alan Watkinson, Farah's PE teacher, said: "The only language he seemed to understand was the language of PE and sport."
Watkinson would go on to contact social services who managed to find another family from Somalia to foster him. Mr Watkinson helped him gain British citizenship under the name Mohamed Farah, which was granted in 2000.
From that point onwards, Farah developed as a person and an athlete, going on to become a four-time Olympic gold medallist and a six-time world champion. When Farah was sent away, he had to leave his mother Aisha and two brothers, who all live on a farm in Somaliland.
Farah met his now-wife Tania Nell while at university in West London. Together they have four children, Rhianna, Hussein Mo, Amani and Aisha Farah.
Incredibly, in the documentary, Farah also met the real Mohamed Farah over a video call. However, The Sun claimed the athlete had to break contact with him and change his phone number, after he was allegedly hounded for money by the man and around ten others who had got hold of his number.
