What is Mo Farah's Net Worth?
Sir Mo Farah is a British-Somali retired long-distance runner who has a net worth of $5 million. With ten global championship gold medals, including four at the Olympics and six at the World Championships, Mo Farah is the most successful male track distance runner in history. Farah mostly competed in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter track races, but also ran the gamut from 1,500 meters to the marathon.
Early Life and Education
Mo Farah was born as Hussein Abdi Kahin on March 23, 1983 in Gabiley, Somalia. When he was four, his father died in the Somaliland War of Independence, and shortly after that, he was separated from his mother. At the age of nine, he was illegally trafficked to the United Kingdom from Djibouti under the name of another child, Mohamed Farah, and was forced into child labor as a domestic servant. During this time, he became separated from his twin, Hassan. Farah was disallowed from going to school during his first years in the UK, but he eventually attended Feltham Community College. Through his PE teacher, he was able to find a foster family.
Career Beginnings
Farah began his sports career with London's Borough of Hounslow Athletics Club, competing in cross-country as an under-13 in the 1994 London Youth Games. Three years later, he won the first of his five English Schools' Athletics Championships. Recognizing his talent, shipping magnate and philanthropist Eddie Kulukundis paid the legal fees to help Farah become a naturalized British citizen so the runner could travel for international competitions. Farah went on to win his first major title in the 5,000 meters at the 2001 European Athletics Junior Championships. The same year, he started training at St Mary's University, Twickenham.
Career, 2005-2013
In 2005, Farah moved in with Australian runner Craig Mottram and a group of Kenyan runners. The following year, he won the silver medal in the European Championship's 5,000-meter race and the gold at the European Cross Country Championships. In 2007, Farah represented the UK in the 5,000-meter race at the World Championships, and came in sixth. He began specializing in the 10,000 meters in 2008. In early 2009, Farah set a new British indoor record in the 3,000 meters, and just weeks later broke his own record by over six seconds at the UK Indoor Grand Prix. He went on to claim gold in the 3,000 meters at the European Indoor Championships. Farah continued his success by winning the Great South Run and claiming his second-consecutive silver at the European Cross Country Championships. In 2010, he won the London 10,000, the European 10,000m Cup, and both the 10,000 meters and the 5,000 meters at the European Athletics Championships.
Farah had a strong year in 2011, beginning with his victory at the Edinburgh Cross Country. A couple months after that, he won the 3,000 meters at the European Indoor Championships, and also won the New York City Half Marathon. In June, Farah won the Prefontaine Classic's 10,000-meter race with a new British and European record. At the World Championships later in the summer, he won silver in the 10,000 meters and gold in the 5,000. Farah went on to have one of his best years in 2012. After winning the 5,000 meters at the European Championships in June, he claimed gold in both the 10,000 meters and the 5,000 meters at the Summer Olympics in London, giving Britain its first-ever gold in the former race. Farah continued his success throughout 2013, breaking the European 1,500-meter record in July and winning the 10,000 meters and the 5,000 meters at the World Championships in Moscow in August.
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Career, 2014-2021
At the 2014 European Athletics Championships, Farah successfully defended his 10,000- and 5,000-meter titles. In the process, he became the most successful athlete in the history of the European Athletics Championships, with five total titles. Later in the year, Farah won the Great North Run. In 2015, he repeated his gold medal double in the 10,000 and 5,000 meters at the World Championships in Beijing. Farah repeated the double again at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, making him only the second person ever, after Lasse Virén, to win both the 10,000- and 5,000-meter races at successive Olympics Games. He went on to win his third-consecutive Great North Run. In 2017, Farah won the 10,000 meters at the World Championships and came in second in the 5,000 meters. He won his final 5,000 meters in the Diamond League in August, and claimed his fourth consecutive Great North Run title in September.
In 2018, Farah decided to transition full-time to marathon events. In March, he won the inaugural London Big Half Marathon, and in April finished third in the London Marathon. Later in the year, Farah claimed his fifth consecutive Great North Run title and won his first marathon title, in Chicago. In 2019, Farah won his second consecutive London Big Half Marathon and his sixth consecutive Great North Run. He subsequently announced in November that he would be returning to track to defend his 10,000-meter title at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Before the Olympics, Farah broke the men's all-time record for the one-hour run at the Diamond League meeting in Brussels. He also won the 2021 Djibouti International Half Marathon, and competed in his first 10,000-meter race at the World Championships since 2017; he ultimately came in eighth. After failing to qualify for the COVID-delayed Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021, Farah announced his retirement.
Other Media Appearances
Farah has made various appearances in the media outside the context of athletics. In July of 2012, he competed in a celebrity charity edition of the game show "The Cube." Later, in 2020, Farah competed on the survival reality series "I'm a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!," where he was the eighth celebrity to be eliminated. In 2022, he participated on the comedy panel game show "Taskmaster" and was the subject of the BBC documentary "The Real Mo Farah."
Personal Life
In the spring of 2010, Farah married his longtime girlfriend Tania Nell. Together, they have twin daughters named Aisha and Amani and a son named Hussein. From 2011 to 2017, the family lived in Portland, Oregon, where Farah trained with the Nike Oregon Project. After cutting ties with his coach Alberto Salazar at the end of 2017, Farah returned to London with his family. In the 2017 New Years Honours, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
