5 June 2010

Mo Farah (coach: Ricky Simms) won this evening’s European Cup 10,000m title in Marseille in dominating fashion, racing to victory in 27:28.86 to go third on the UK All-Time list.

Farah, who had clocked an impressive 27:44 to win the Bupa London 10000m in a UK road best last Monday, once again proved that he’s in outstanding shape following a period of altitude training in Kenya.

The pacemaker had led the pack through the early stages at 27:30 pace, but Farah, in only his second ever 10000m track outing, passed him with eight and a half laps to go. He went through 5000m in 13:52 before clocking a final 800m of 2:01 – including a 58 second last lap – for a perfectly paced negative split.

His 13:36 second half enough was to see him cruise to victory by over 40 seconds from second placed Frenchman Meftah Abdellatif (28:12.83) and secure the European Championships ‘A’ qualifying standard.  

"My main aim tonight was to get the qualifying time for the European Championships in Barcelona," he said. "I’m delighted to have done it and I feel like I have a lot more in the tank and can run much faster over the distance. I’m looking forward to getting back into a period of training now and preparing for that."

Farah was the only member of the Aviva Great Britain and Northern Ireland men’s team to run in the men’s ‘A’ race. Once ‘A’ and ‘B’ race times were combined, Anthony Ford (coach: Stan Taylor) placed 25th in 29:21.90, followed by Mike Skinner (coach: Andy Hobdell) in 30th (29:44.75), Phil Nicholls (coach: Steve Sharp) in 32nd (30:00.90) and Mark Warmby (coach: Gary Staines) in 35th (30:15.34).

Freya Murray (coach: Steve Jones) was first Brit home in the women’s race in sixth in a lifetime best performance of 32:23.44 and led the team to second place overall behind Portugal. Hayley Yelling (coach: Conrad Milton) and Sonia Samuels (coach: George Gandy) followed in 10th (32:49.07) and 17th (33:08.89) respectively.

The race was won by Portugal’s Ines Monteiro, the defending champion, in 31:13.58.

Jo Pavey, following her fifth place finish at the recent Bupa Great Manchester 10k, was forced to withdraw from the Aviva GB & NI team earlier this week after a period of missed training due to injury and illness. Although now fully recovered, she’s opted to focus on her preparations for the Aviva European Trials and UK Championships at the end of this month.

Full results can be found at: http://www.marseille2010.com/